Enlarge / Global map of rainfall change due to warming 56 million years ago: green = wetter, brown = drier. Circles show where geological data show it became dryer or wetter, as a check on the new results.
Tierney et. al.
In a study published in PNAS, professor Jessica Tierney of the University of Arizona and colleagues have produced globally complete maps of the carbon-driven warming that occurred in the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 56 million years ago.
While the PETM has some parallels to present warming, the new work includes some unexpected results—the climate response to CO2 then was about twice as strong as the current best estimate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But changes in rainfall patterns and the amplification of warming at the poles were remarkably consistent with modern trends, despite being a very different world back then.
A different world
The warming of the PETM was triggered by a geologically rapid release of CO2, primarily from a convulsion of magma in Earth’s mantle at the place where Iceland is now situated. The magma invaded oil-rich sediments in the North Atlantic, boiling off CO2 and methane. It took an already warm, high-CO2 climate and made it hotter for tens of thousands of years, driving some deep-sea creatures and some tropical plants to extinction. Mammals evolved smaller, and there were big migrations across continents; crocodiles, hippo-like creatures, and palm trees all thrived just 500 miles from the North Pole, and Antarctica was ice-free.
As our climate warms, scientists are increasingly looking at past climates for insights, but they are hampered by uncertainties in temperature, CO2 levels, and the exact timing of changes—prior work on the PETM had temperature uncertainties on the order of 8° to 10° C, for example. Now Tierney’s team has narrowed that uncertainty range to just 2.4° C, showing that the PETM warmed by 5.6° C, a refinement on the previous estimate of approximately 5° C.
“We were really able to narrow that estimate down over previous work,” said Tierney.
The researchers also calculated the CO2 levels before and during the PETM derived from isotopes of boron measured in fossil plankton shells. They found CO2 was about 1,120 ppm just before the PETM, rising to 2,020 ppm at its peak. For comparison, preindustrial CO2 was 280 ppm, and we’re currently at about 418 ppm. The team was able to use these new temperature and CO2 values to calculate how much the planet warmed in response to a doubling of CO2 values, or the “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity” for the PETM.
Highly sensitive
The IPCC’s best estimate for climate sensitivity in our time is 3° C, but that comes with a large uncertainty—it could be anything between 2° to 5° C—due to our imperfect knowledge of feedbacks in the Earth system. If the sensitivity turns out to be on the higher end, then we’ll warm more for a given amount of emissions. Tierney’s study found the PETM climate sensitivity was 6.5° C—more than double the IPCC best estimate.
A higher number is “not too surprising,” Tierney told me, because earlier research had indicated Earth’s response to CO2 is stronger at the higher CO2 levels of Earth’s past. Our climate sensitivity won’t be that high: “We don’t expect that we’re going to experience a climate sensitivity of 6.5° C tomorrow,” Tierney explained.
Their paper does, however, suggest that if we continue to raise CO2 levels, it will nudge the temperature response to that CO2 higher. “We might expect some level of increased climate sensitivity in the near future, especially if we emit more greenhouse gases,” Tierney said.
Mapping climate by “Data Assimilation”
The new, sharper picture emerges from the way Tierney’s team dealt with geologists’ perennial problem: We don’t have data for every place on the planet. Geological data for the PETM is limited to locations where sediments from that time are preserved and accessible—typically either via a borehole or outcropping on land. Any conclusions about global climate must be scaled up from those sparse data points.
“It’s actually a hard problem,” remarked Tierney. “If you want to understand what’s happening spatially, it’s really hard to do that from just the geological data alone.” So Tierney and colleagues borrowed a technique from weather forecasting. “What weather folks are doing is they’re running a weather model, and as the day goes on, they take measurements of wind and temperature, and then they assimilate it into their model … and then run the model again to improve the forecast,” Tierney said.
Instead of thermometers, her team used temperature measurements from the remains of microbes and plankton preserved in 56 million-year-old sediments. Instead of a weather model, they used a climate model that had Eocene geography and no ice sheets to simulate the climate just before, and at the peak of, PETM warmth. They ran the model a bunch of times, varying CO2 levels and Earth’s orbital configuration because of the uncertainties in those. Then they used the microbe and plankton data to select the simulation that best fit the data.
“The idea is really to take advantage of the fact that model simulations are spatially complete. But they are models, so we don’t know if they’re right. The data know what happened, but they’re not spatially complete,” explained Tierney. “So, by blending them, we get the best of both worlds.”
To see how well their blended product matched reality, they checked it against independent data derived from pollen and leaves, and from places not included in the blending process. “They actually matched up really, really well, which is somewhat comforting,” said Tierney.
“The novelty of this study is to use a climate model to rigorously work out what climate state best fits the data both before and during the PETM, giving patterns of climate change all over the globe and a better estimate of global mean temperature change,” said Dr. Tom Dunkley Jones of the University of Birmingham, who was not part of the study.
The newly deployed James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system.
The American space agency NASA confirmed the evidence, which it said was discovered in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a star about 700 light years from Earth. Planets that orbit a star outside our solar system are called exoplanets.
NASA said the exoplanet where the carbon dioxide was found, or detected, is a hot, gas planet. It was discovered in 2011 and is called WASP-39 b. The exoplanet – which has a mass about the same as Saturn’s – stays around 900 degrees Celsius. It remains hot because it orbits very close to its star.
The space agency said the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have made observations of WASP-39 b in the past. Those observations suggested the presence of water vapor, sodium and potassium in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.
But now, the presence of carbon dioxide has also been confirmed in its atmosphere. NASA said the Webb telescope was able to make the discovery because of its unusual technical abilities.
Researchers recently described the discovery in a paper published online. A detailed study about the findings is to appear in an upcoming issue of the publication Nature.
NASA has described Webb as “the largest and most powerful space science telescope ever built.” It is a joint partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency.
Webb is designed to gather more data and explore parts of space that have never been observed before. In July, NASA released the first images captured by the Webb telescope. The images demonstrated Webb’s ability to collect data on distant objects and observe highly detailed elements of galaxies and exoplanets.
NASA said a sensitive, infrared instrument made it possible for the orbiting observatory to confirm the presence of carbon dioxide in WASP-39 b’s atmosphere. The instrument is called a Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec).
NIRSpec is designed to capture radiation in near-infrared wavelengths. Using this instrument, astronomers are able to produce a detailed map of some of the chemicals found in a planet’s atmosphere, if conditions are right. This permits scientists to look for the presence of gasses and other substances.
Zafar Rustamkulov is a student at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Webb’s Early Release Science team. He said in a statement that as soon as he saw the carbon dioxide data, he knew it was a major discovery. “It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences.”
Natalie Batalha of the University of California at Santa Cruz helped lead the team. She said, “Detecting such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39 b bodes well for the detection of atmospheres on smaller, terrestrial-sized planets.”
NASA said such discoveries are important because they help scientists better understand the makeup of a planet’s atmosphere. This can provide valuable information about how planets formed and developed over time.
“Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation,” said Mike Line of Arizona State University. He is another member of the research team. “By measuring this carbon dioxide…, we can determine how much solid versus how much gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet.”
Line added that in coming years, the Webb telescope is expected to continue making similar discoveries. In doing so, scientists can gain “insight into the details of how planets form and the uniqueness of our own solar system.”
I’m Bryan Lynn.
Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from NASA, Agence France-Presse and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
Quiz – NASA Finds Evidence of Carbon Dioxide in Exoplanet Atmosphere
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The can do much more than produce of the universe. The observatory has, for the first time, of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet that’s not in our solar system. It detected the gas on WASP-39 b, a gas giant that’s orbiting a star some 700 light years away.
The Hubble and Spitzer telescopes previously detected water vapor, sodium and potassium in the planet’s atmosphere. But JWST has more powerful and sensitive infrared capabilities and was able to pick up the signature of carbon dioxide as well.
Catch your breath — Webb has captured the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of a planet outside of our solar system! WASP-39 B is a gas giant closely orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light years away: https://t.co/FenLqV6HSo pic.twitter.com/abJvqxfLdG
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) August 25, 2022
“Understanding the composition of a planet’s atmosphere can help us learn more about its origin and evolution,” an official JWST . “Webb’s success here offers evidence that it could also be able to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets in the future.”
NASA spectroscopic data JWST captured from WASP-96 b, a gas exoplanet that’s approximately 1,150 light years away. The observatory detected “the unambiguous signature of water,” along with haze and clouds, which were not previously believed to exist on WASP-96 b.
Also this week, researchers of an exoplanet that’s around 100 light years away. It was detected with the help of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and ground-based telescopes rather than JWST, but it might merit a closer look from the latter. Researchers believe that water could make up as much as 30 percent of the mass of TOI-1452 b, which has been deemed a “super-Earth.” It’s around 70 percent larger than Earth and it may have a “very deep ocean.”
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This illustration shows what exoplanet WASP-39 b could look like, based on the current understanding of the planet. WASP-39 b is a hot, puffy gas giant with a mass 0.28 times Jupiter (0.94 times Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter, orbiting just 0.0486 astronomical units (4,500,000 miles) from its star. The star, WASP-39, is fractionally smaller and less massive than the Sun. Because it is so close to its star, WASP-39 b is very hot and is likely to be tidally locked, with one side facing the star at all times. Data collected by Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) show unambiguous evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, while previous observations from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, as well as other telescopes, indicate the presence of water vapor, sodium, and potassium. The planet probably has clouds and some form of weather, but it may not have atmospheric bands like those of Jupiter and Saturn. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
NASA’s Webb ushers in a new era of exoplanet science with the first unequivocal detection of carbon dioxide in a planetary atmosphere outside our solar system.
After years of preparation and anticipation, Watch this Space Sparks episode to learn more about how the James Webb Space Telescope has found definitive evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away.
NASA’s Webb Detects Carbon Dioxide in Exoplanet Atmosphere
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first definitive proof of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet – a planet outside the solar system. This observation of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away from Earth provides important insights into the composition and formation of the planet. The finding, which is accepted for publication in the journal Nature, offers evidence that Webb may be able to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets in the future.
The exoplanet, WASP-39 b, is a hot gas giant with a mass roughly one-quarter that of
A transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on July 10, 2022, reveals the first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in a planet outside the solar system. This is also the first detailed exoplanet transmission spectrum ever captured that covers wavelengths between 3 and 5.5 microns. A transmission spectrum is made by comparing starlight filtered through a planet’s atmosphere as it moves in front of the star, to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star. Each of the 95 data points (white circles) on this graph represents the amount of a specific wavelength of light that is blocked by the planet and absorbed by its atmosphere. Wavelengths that are preferentially absorbed by the atmosphere appear as peaks in the transmission spectrum. The peak centered around 4.3 microns represents the light absorbed by carbon dioxide. The gray lines extending above and below each data point are error bars that show the uncertainty of each measurement, or the reasonable range of actual possible values. For a single observation, the error on these measurements is extremely small. The blue line is a best-fit model that takes into account the data, the known properties of WASP-39 b and its star (e.g., size, mass, temperature), and assumed characteristics of the atmosphere. Researchers can vary the parameters in the model – changing unknown characteristics like cloud height in the atmosphere and abundances of various gases – to get a better fit and further understand what the atmosphere is really like. The model shown here assumes that the planet is made primarily of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of water and carbon dioxide, and a thin veil of clouds. The observation was made using the NIRSpec PRISM bright object time-series mode, which involves using a prism to spread out light from a single bright object (like the star WASP-39) and measuring the brightness of each wavelength at set intervals of time. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
Filtered Starlight
Transiting planets like WASP-39 b, whose orbits we observe edge-on rather than from above, can provide scientists with ideal opportunities to investigate planetary atmospheres. During a transit, some of the starlight is eclipsed by the planet completely (causing the overall dimming) and some is transmitted through the planet’s atmosphere.
Because different gases absorb different combinations of colors, investigators can analyze small differences in brightness of the transmitted light across a spectrum of wavelengths to determine exactly what an atmosphere is made of. With its combination of an inflated atmosphere and frequent transits, WASP-39 b is an ideal target for transmission spectroscopy.
A series of light curves from Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) shows the change in brightness of three different wavelengths (colors) of light from the WASP-39 star system over time as the planet transited the star on July 10, 2022. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the light from the star. This observation was made using the NIRSpec PRISM bright object time-series mode, which involves using a prism to spread out light from a single bright object (like the star WASP-39) and measure the brightness of each wavelength at set intervals of time. To capture these data, Webb stared at the WASP-39 star system for more than eight hours, beginning about three hours before the transit and ending about two hours after the transit was complete. The transit itself lasted about three hours. Each curve shown here includes a total of 500 individual brightness measurements – about one per minute. Although all colors are blocked to some extent by the planet, some colors are blocked more than others. This occurs because each gas in the atmosphere absorbs different amounts of specific wavelengths. As a result, each color has a slightly different light curve. During the transit of WASP-39 b, light with a wavelength of 4.3 microns is not as bright as 3.0-micron or 4.7-micron light because it is absorbed by carbon dioxide. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
First Clear Detection of Carbon Dioxide
The team of researchers used Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) for its observations of WASP-39 b. In the resulting spectrum of the exoplanet’s atmosphere, a small hill between 4.1 and 4.6 microns presents the first clear, detailed evidence of carbon dioxide ever detected in a planet outside the solar system.
“As soon as the data appeared on my screen, the whopping carbon dioxide feature grabbed me,” said Zafar Rustamkulov, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University and member of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science team, which undertook this investigation. “It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences.”
No observatory before has ever measured such subtle differences in brightness of so many individual colors across the 3 to 5.5-micron range in an exoplanet transmission spectrum. Access to this part of the spectrum is crucial for measuring the abundances of gases like water and methane, as well as carbon dioxide. These are gases that are thought to exist in many different types of exoplanets.
“Detecting such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39 b bodes well for the detection of atmospheres on smaller, terrestrial-sized planets,” said Natalie Batalha of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who leads the team.
Understanding the composition of a planet’s atmosphere is essential because it tells us something about the origin of the planet and how it evolved. “Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation,” said Mike Line of Arizona State University, another member of this research team. “By measuring this carbon dioxide feature, we can determine how much solid versus how much gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet. In the coming decade, JWST will make this measurement for a variety of planets, providing insight into the details of how planets form and the uniqueness of our own solar system.”
Early Release Science
This NIRSpec prism observation of WASP-39 b is just one part of a larger investigation that includes observations of the planet using multiple Webb instruments, as well as observations of two other transiting planets. The investigation, which is part of the Early Release Science program, was designed to provide the exoplanet research community with robust Webb data as soon as possible.
“The goal is to analyze the Early Release Science observations quickly and develop open-source tools for the science community to use,” explained Vivien Parmentier, a co-investigator from Oxford University. “This enables contributions from all over the world and ensures that the best possible science will come out of the coming decades of observations.”
Natasha Batalha, co-author on the paper from NASA’s Ames Research Center, adds that “NASA’s open science guiding principles are centered in our Early Release Science work, supporting an inclusive, transparent, and collaborative scientific process.”
Reference: “Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere” by The JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team: Eva-Maria Ahrer, Lili Alderson, Natalie M. Batalha, Natasha E. Batalha, Jacob L. Bean, Thomas G. Beatty, Taylor J. Bell, Björn Benneke, Zachory K. Berta-Thompson, Aarynn L. Carter, Ian J. M. Crossfield, Néstor Espinoza, Adina D. Feinstein, Jonathan J. Fortney, Neale P. Gibson, Jayesh M. Goyal, Eliza M. -R. Kempton, James Kirk, Laura Kreidberg, Mercedes López-Morales, Michael R. Line, Joshua D. Lothringer, Sarah E. Moran, Sagnick Mukherjee, Kazumasa Ohno, Vivien Parmentier, Caroline Piaulet, Zafar Rustamkulov, Everett Schlawin, David K. Sing, Kevin B. Stevenson, Hannah R. Wakeford, Natalie H. Allen, Stephan M. Birkmann, Jonathan Brande, Nicolas Crouzet, Patricio E. Cubillos, Mario Damiano, Jean-Michel Désert, Peter Gao, Joseph Harrington, Renyu Hu, Sarah Kendrew, Heather A. Knutson, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Jérémy Leconte, Monika Lendl, Ryan J. MacDonald, E. M. May, Yamila Miguel, Karan Molaverdikhani, Julianne I. Moses, Catriona Anne Murray, Molly Nehring, Nikolay K. Nikolov, D. J. M. Petit dit de la Roche, Michael Radica, Pierre-Alexis Roy, Keivan G. Stassun, Jake Taylor, William C. Waalkes, Patcharapol Wachiraphan, Luis Welbanks, Peter J. Wheatley, Keshav Aggarwal, Munazza K. Alam, Agnibha Banerjee, Joanna K. Barstow, Jasmina Blecic, S. L. Casewell, Quentin Changeat, K. L. Chubb, Knicole D. Colón, Louis-Philippe Coulombe, Tansu Daylan, Miguel de Val-Borro, Leen Decin, Leonardo A. Dos Santos, Laura Flagg, Kevin France, Guangwei Fu, A. García Muñoz, John E. Gizis, Ana Glidden, David Grant, Kevin Heng, Thomas Henning, Yu-Cian Hong, Julie Inglis, Nicolas Iro, Tiffany Kataria, Thaddeus D. Komacek, Jessica E. Krick, Elspeth K.H. Lee, Nikole K. Lewis, Jorge Lillo-Box, Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, Luigi Mancini, Avi M. Mandell, Megan Mansfield, Mark S. Marley, Thomas Mikal-Evans, Giuseppe Morello, Matthew C. Nixon, Kevin Ortiz Ceballos, Anjali A. A. Piette, Diana Powell, Benjamin V. Rackham, Lakeisha Ramos-Rosado, Emily Rauscher, Seth Redfield, Laura K. Rogers, Michael T. Roman, Gael M. Roudier, Nicholas Scarsdale, Evgenya L. Shkolnik, John Southworth, Jessica J. Spake, Maria E Steinrueck, Xianyu Tan, Johanna K. Teske, Pascal Tremblin, Shang-Min Tsai, Gregory S. Tucker, Jake D. Turner, Jeff A. Valenti, Olivia Venot, Ingo P. Waldmann, Nicole L. Wallack, Xi Zhang and Sebastian Zieba, Accepted, Nature. arXiv:2208.11692
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
The exoplanet, WASP-39b, is a hot gas giant orbiting a sunlike star that is 700 light-years from Earth and part of a larger Webb investigation that includes two other transiting planets, according to NASA. Understanding the atmospheric makeup of planets like WASP-39b is critical for knowing their origins and how they evolved, the agency noted in a news release.
“Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation,” said Mike Line, an associate professor in Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, in the news release. Line is a member of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science team, which conducted the investigation.
The team made the carbon dioxide observation using the telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph — one of Webb’s four scientific instruments — to observe WASP-39b’s atmosphere. Their research is part of the Early Release Science Program, an initiative designed to provide data from the telescope to the exoplanet research community as soon as possible, guiding further scientific study and discovery.
This latest finding has been accepted for publication in the journal Nature.
“By measuring this carbon dioxide feature, we can determine how much solid versus how much gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet,” Line added. “In the coming decade, JWST will make this measurement for a variety of planets, providing insight into the details of how planets form and the uniqueness of our own solar system.”
A new era in exoplanet research
The highly sensitive Webb telescope launched on Christmas Day 2021 toward its current orbit 1.5 million kilometers (nearly 932,000 miles) from Earth. By observing the universe with longer wavelengths of light than other space telescopes use, Webb can study the beginning of time more closely, hunt for unobserved formations among the first galaxies, and peer inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are currently forming.
In the captured spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere, the researchers saw a small hill between 4.1 and 4.6 microns — a “clear signal of carbon dioxide,” said team leader Natalie Batalha, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, in the release. (A micron is a unit of length equal to one millionth of a meter.)
“Depending on the atmosphere’s composition, thickness, and cloudiness, it absorbs some colors of light more than others — making the planet appear larger,” said team member Munazza Alam, a postdoctoral fellow in the Earth & Planets Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science. “We can analyze these miniscule differences in the size of the planet to reveal the atmosphere’s chemical makeup.”
Access to this part of the light spectrum — which the Webb telescope makes possible — is crucial for measuring abundances of gases such as methane and water, as well as carbon dioxide, which are thought to exist in many exoplanets, according to NASA. Because individual gases absorb different combinations of colors, researchers can examine “small differences in brightness of the transmitted light across a spectrum of wavelengths to determine exactly what an atmosphere is made of,” according to NASA.
Previously, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer telescopes discovered water vapor, sodium and potassium in the planet’s atmosphere. “Previous observations of this planet with Hubble and Spitzer had given us tantalizing hints that carbon dioxide could be present,” Batalha said. “The data from JWST showed an unequivocal carbon dioxide feature that was so prominent it was practically shouting at us.”
“As soon as the data appeared on my screen, the whopping carbon dioxide feature grabbed me,” said team member Zafar Rustamkulov, a graduate student of in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, in a news release. “It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences,” he added.
Discovered in 2011, WASP-39b’s mass is about the same as Saturn’s and roughly a fourth of Jupiter’s, while its diameter is 1.3 times greater than Jupiter’s. Since the exoplanet orbits very close to its star, it completes one circuit in slightly over four Earth days.
The main conversation around climate change primarily focuses on one thing: how much carbon is in the air—and by extension, how to reduce it. However, what is less talked about but may become incredibly important is how much carbon is in our oceans. There is 50 times more carbon in the ocean than the atmosphere. Some climate researchers believe if we could just slightly increase the amount of carbon the ocean can absorb from the atmosphere, we could avoid some of the worst effects of climate change.
That might seem unusual when you first hear it, but think about it a bit longer. The ocean covers roughly 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and it absorbs carbon dioxide naturally—effectively dissolving it. Phytoplankton in the ocean use this carbon dioxide and sunlight to run photosynthesis just like land-based plants. Oxygen is produced by this process—phytoplankton are actually responsible for about 50 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere.
Some climate researchers have proposed that if we could just increase the amount of phytoplankton in the ocean, we could pull more carbon out of the atmosphere. A well-known way to produce a phytoplankton bloom is to introduce iron, an important nutrient for the plankton community, to the water. Many parts of the ocean are low in iron, so even a relatively small addition of iron could theoretically produce a lot of phytoplankton and thereby remove a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age,” John Martin, an oceanographer at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, wrote in 1988. Back then, most people were only just starting to become familiar with the idea of climate change as we now know it. But that’s also around the time people started to think about how iron fertilization could affect phytoplankton growth and, in turn, change atmospheric carbon levels.
Although climate scientists have spent quite a bit time discussing this strategy among themselves, there has not been a concerted effort to explore it further and take it seriously. Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is a scientist who has done some research into iron fertilization in the ocean. He and his team looked at whether introducing iron could “alter the flux of carbon to the deep ocean” and found there was a significant carbon-sequestering effect.
Buesseler told The Daily Beast that his research was done nearly 20 years ago, and there hasn’t been a whole lot since.
“What happened 20 years ago is we started going around and we would spread out a chemical form of iron and look for that phytoplankton—the plant response—and indeed it really showed very clearly that if you enhance the iron then you could create more uptake of carbon dioxide,” Buesseler said. “The difference between now and 20 years ago is that I think the climate crisis is so much more apparent to the public.”
A phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Iceland, as observed from space.
NASA
Using the oceans to combat climate change has become a much-discussed topic among climate scientists in recent years, and Buesseler was part of a group of scientists that released a report through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine late last year that looked at the available options, including increasing phytoplankton levels.
“We’ve got a big reservoir. It takes up a third of the greenhouse gasses already. The question that people are now asking more is what can we do to enhance that?” Buesseler said. “Let’s get out there. Let’s do experiments.”
The experiments themselves wouldn’t cause any harm to the ocean’s natural ecosystem, Buesseler said, but they could tell us a lot about how introducing more iron to the ocean on a much larger scale might affect that ecosystem in the long-term. He doesn’t believe doing this on a large scale would cause significant harm, but it’s important to get the research done so we can know that for sure. He said that a “very conservative” estimate would be that up to a gigaton of carbon dioxide could be sequestered every year if this process was done at scale.
“The difference between now and 20 years ago is that I think the climate crisis is so much more apparent to the public.”
— Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
“It will change the types of plants and animals that grow, but that is already happening with the changes in temperature and acidity,” Buesseler said.
David Siegel, a professor of marine science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told The Daily Beast that iron fertilization would also be pretty easy to do. You could simply get a 120-foot fishing boat and start deploying the iron where it’ll be most effective for stimulating phytoplankton growth.
“It can be done relatively cheaply. Each atom of iron that you add in the right places can make tens of thousands of atoms of carbon get fixed,” meaning absorbed by the water. “It’s rather efficient,” Siegel said. “You can deploy vessels that release iron oxide into the water—even just iron ore into the water—and you can make blooms that you can see from space. We know that.”
The effects would happen rather quickly. Scientists who have introduced iron to seawater in the past have seen that phytoplankton blooms can start becoming visible within the first 24 hours. The ideal place to introduce the iron would be where it’s least plentiful, which would be parts of the ocean—primarily in the southern hemisphere—that aren’t close to land. Iron that ends up in the ocean typically comes from dust that blows into the ocean from the land.
Both Buesseler and Siegel stressed that this should not be seen as an alternative to ending the use of fossil fuels. That is still critical when it comes to having a chance at beating climate change. But avoiding the worst effects of climate change will require also developing carbon removal strategies to reduce the load of greenhouse gasses in the air.
“Even if we decarbonize our economies, there are still 20 or so gigatons of carbon dioxide that needs to be removed from the atmosphere to keep us anywhere near the Paris Accord goals,” Siegel said.
Tips to help manage food recalls and prevent foodborne illnesses
About 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die each year from preventable foodborne illnesses.
Payton, USA TODAY
In a lawsuit filed last week, a consumer alleged that Skittles were “unfit for human consumption” because the rainbow candy contained a “known toxin” – an artificial color additive called titanium dioxide.
Mars, the maker of Skittles, told multiple media outlets that the company couldn’t comment on pending litigation, but its “use of titanium dioxide complies with FDA regulations.”
Titanium dioxide is used in a wide range of food products and consumer goods – from candy to sunscreen and house paint. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintains that the regulated use of titanium dioxide, specifically as a color additive in food, is safe under some restrictions.
However, some experts and food regulators in other countries disagree – pointing to potential, serious health consequences and rising concerns about the additive. Starting August 7, for example, the use of titanium dioxide in food will be banned in the European Union.
Here’s what you need to know about titanium dioxide.
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What is titanium dioxide? Why is it used in food products?
Titanium dioxide (TiO2), sometimes referred to as E171, is an inorganic, solid substance used in a wide range of consumer goods including cosmetics, paint, plastic and food, according to the American Chemistry Council.
In food, titanium dioxide is often used as an artificial color additive. Tasha Stoiber, senior scientist at the consumer health nonprofit Environmental Working Group, says titanium dioxide can generally be thought as a “paint primer” – it often goes on a hard-shelled candy like Skittles before the color is added to give it a “uniform shine.”
Titanium dioxide “can also be found in dairy products to make them whiter and brighter … like frosting or cottage cheese,” Stoiber told USA TODAY, adding that the additive is used in other products – such as food or beverage instant mixes – as an anti-caking agent.
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Titanium dioxide is used in an enormous range of food products, which can feel jarring when looking at some of its other uses.
“It’s sort of ironic, maybe ironic is the wrong word, that the ingredient in paint that makes your kitchen shiny also makes your Hostess cupcakes shiny,” EWG’s senior vice president of government affairs Scott Faber added.
Is titanium dioxide dangerous? Has it been linked to any health issues?
While the FDA maintains that the regulated use of titanium dioxide is safe, the European Food Safety Authority and some other experts warn of potential, serious health risks.
Most notably, the May 2021 EFSA safety assessment pointed to genotoxicity concerns, as suggested by previous research. Genotoxicity is the ability of chemicals to damage genetic information such as DNA, which may lead to cancer.
“After oral ingestion, the absorption of titanium dioxide particles is low, however they can accumulate in the body,” Maged Younes, chair of the EFSA’s expert Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings, said in a May 2021 statement.
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EFSA did not identify a safe amount of titanium dioxide that could be consumed.
Matthew Wright, chair of the EFSA’s working group on titanium dioxide, noted that “the evidence for general toxic effects was not conclusive,” but that the panel couldn’t rule out genotoxicity entirely. There were also some current data limitations and the assessment “could not establish a safe level for daily intake of the food additive,” he said.
What other candies and food contain titanium dioxide?
It’s hard to determine the total amount of food products that have titanium dioxide because federal regulations don’t require all producers to list its use on ingredient labels, but the list of foods containing the substance certainly doesn’t end with Skittles.
Of the products that include the additive in their labels, Thea Bourianne, senior manager at data consultant Label Insights, told Food Navigator USA in May 2021 that more than 11,000 products in the company’s database of U.S. food and beverage products listed titanium dioxide as an ingredient. Non-chocolate candy led those numbers at 32%. Cupcakes and snack cakes made up 14%,followed by cookies at 8%, coated pretzels and trail mix at 7%, baking decorations at 6%, gum and mints at 4% and ice cream at 2%.
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In addition to Skittles, other candies that contain titanium dioxide include Nice! mints, Trolli sour gummies and Ring Pops, according to EWG.
Other food products that list titanium dioxide are Lucerne cottage cheese, Beyond Meat’s chicken plant-based tenders, Great Value ice cream and Chips Ahoy! cookies.
What is the FDA limit for titanium dioxide?
The FDA’s Code of Federal Regulations allows for the legal, regulated use of titanium dioxide in food products, under some restrictions.
“The FDA continues to allow for the safe use of titanium dioxide as a color additive in foods generally according to the specifications and conditions, including that the quantity of titanium dioxide does not exceed 1% by weight of the food,” the FDA said in a statement to USA TODAY.
The FDA first approved the use of titanium dioxide in food in 1966, following its 1960 removal (along with the removal of other color additives) from the agency’s original “Generally Recognized as Safe” list. In 1977, titanium dioxide joined the list of color additives that are exempt from certification, which means “titanium dioxide” doesn’t have to be listed on the packaging of every product it’s used in, Faber noted.
“There are many uses of titanium dioxide that we don’t know about because they were made exempt from being on the package in 1977,” said Faber, who added that “nothing much has changed” since – other than the FDA approving some other uses of the color additive, such as expanding the use of mica-based pearlescent pigments (prepared from titanium dioxide) as color additives in distilled spirits over recent years.
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Faber argued there hasn’t been enough change in these federal regulations in the decades following the FDA’s approval of titanium dioxide – especially as others increasingly point to potential health consequences.
“What titanium dioxide is really emblematic of … is the failure of FDA to look back at these old decisions and ask whether its decisions that were made in this case … 56 years ago (in the 1966 approval) still hold up,” he said.
In its statement to USA TODAY, the FDA maintained that, in all post-approvals for food additives, “our scientists continue to review relevant new information to determine whether there are safety questions and whether the use of such substance is no longer safe under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”
When asked about the recent Skittles lawsuit, the FDA said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
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Is titanium dioxide illegal in other countries?
Though the regulated use of titanium dioxide in food products is legal in the U.S. and Canada, it’s banned in some other countries, notably throughout Europe. In May 2021, the European Food Safety Authority announced that titanium dioxide “can no longer be considered safe as a food additive.”
Following six months of phasing out the additive, titanium dioxide will be completely banned in the European Union starting August 7. France had previously banned the use of titanium dioxide in food starting in January 2020.
How can I tell if a product has titanium dioxide in it? How can I avoid the ingredient?
Some food products will include titanium dioxide on their nutrition label. But again, it can be hard to tell for those who don’t list the ingredient.
If you want to avoid titanium dioxide, Stoiber and Faber urge consumers to try and avoid processed foods as best as you can.
“By reducing processed foods in your diet, you can reduce the likelihood of not only eating titanium dioxide, but eating other chemicals of concern,” Faber said, noting that consumers can also call their elected representatives urging them to support increased food safety legislation and take action with organization alliances like Toxic Free Food FDA.
“We’re not only just concerned about titanium dioxide, there’s a whole host of other food additives that also have known harmful health risks associated with them as well,” Stoiber added.
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Three-dimensional models of astronomical objects can be ridiculously complex. They can range from black holes that light doesn’t even escape to the literal size of the Universe and everything in between.
But not every object has received the attention needed to develop a complete model of it, but we can officially add another highly complex model to our lists.
Astronomers at the University of Arizona have developed a model of VY Canis Majoris, a red hypergiant that is quite possibly the largest star in the Milky Way. And they’re going to use that model to predict how it will die.
How red hypergiants die has been a matter of some debate recently. Initially, astronomers thought they simply exploded into a supernova, as so many other stars do.
However, more recent data show a significant lack of supernovae compared to the numbers that would be expected if red hypergiants themselves we to explode that way.
The going theory now is that they are more likely to collapse into a black hole, which is much harder to observe directly than the initially suggested supernovae.
It remains unclear what precisely the characteristics of the stars that would evolve into black holes are; and to find out, it would be beneficial to have a model.
Enter the team from UA. They picked VY Canis Majoris as an excellent stand-in for the type of red hypergiants they were interested in learning more about.
The star itself is massive, ranging from 10 AU to 15 AU (astronomical units) in size. And it is only 3,009 light-years away from Earth as it is. This makes VY Canis Majoris, which resides in the southern constellation Canis Major, fascinating to observers.
Its sheer size and proximity to our Solar System make it an excellent observational candidate. With good observational data, astronomers can see the breathtaking complexity of what the star’s surface actually looks like.
One of the fundamental processes in a star’s death is mass loss. Typically, this happens when gas and dust are blown evenly out of the star’s photosphere. However, on VY Canis Majoris, there are massive features that are similar to Earth’s coronal arcs but a billion times more massive.
The UA researchers used time on ALMA to collect radio signals of the material that is blasted into space as part of these eruptions.
That material, including sulfur dioxide, silicon dioxide, and sodium chloride, would allow them to detect the speed at which it moves, rather than just the static presence of other ejecta, such as dust.
To do so, they had to align all 48 dishes of ALMA and collect over a terabyte of data to get the correct information.
Processing all that collected data can be pretty challenging, and they are still working on some of it. Still, they had enough so far to present their findings to the American Astronomical Society in mid-June.
When they have even more data, they’ll be able to describe an even better model of what one of the largest stars in the galaxy looks like.
And someday, far in the future, that model of what will happen to a red hypergiant might just get a chance to be tested when VY Canis Majoris finally, officially, dies.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.
Early Earth is often described as ‘Hadean’ for good reason. Arising from the ashes of a collision that gave us our Moon, the primordial eon was characterized by hellish heat trapped beneath a thick blanket of carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Strangely those conditions should have been inhospitable for far longer than they were. By around 4 billion years ago – following just a few hundred million years or so of cooling – our planet was already starting to look remarkably habitable.
Any explanation of Earth’s dramatic transformation would have to take into account the rapid loss of its greenhouse gases, allowing the planet to cool and its water vapor to condense into oceans.
The only problem is that this period in our planet’s history left few traces of its geology behind. Scabs of crystallized mineral bobbing about on magma oceans would have long since sunk into the abyss, taking evidence of the planet’s surface conditions with them.
So any hypotheses we come up with to solve the mystery of the missing gas have to rely on mostly circumstantial forms of evidence.
Two researchers from Yale University recently ran the numbers on a rather speculative scenario involving ‘weird’ rocks that no longer exist on Earth’s surface, soaking up all that CO2. And the idea seems to check out.
“Somehow, a massive amount of atmospheric carbon had to be removed,” says planetary scientist Yoshinori Miyazaki, who is now working at the California Institute of Technology.
“Because there is no rock record preserved from the early Earth, we set out to build a theoretical model for the very early Earth from scratch.”
What we know about the Hadean eon on Earth largely comes from astrophysical and geochemical models of planetary formation.
Our Earth-Moon system was most likely the product of a collision between two proto-planets, one roughly Mars-sized and the other more or less the mass of Earth today.
What settled out of that mess of volatiles and rock would have been a molten lump of swirling minerals and gas that was kept warm by a constant downpour of rubble from space.
From these origins, we might imagine a long period of heat and chaos, perpetuated by a greenhouse atmosphere of carbon dioxide and water. One need only look to our neighbor, Venus, to get a sense of what that might look like.
Amid the scant bits of mineral evidence we do have from the Hadean are signs that it already harbored oceans after just a few hundred million years of cooling.
By the eon’s end around 4 billion years ago, the carbon cycle seems to have stabilized temperatures to the point life could exist rather happily.
One possibility is that the carbon in the atmosphere could have dissolved into the oceans, transforming into solid carbonates, which could have sunk and become embedded in the mantle’s currents.
It’s a nice idea, but to even give it half a thought it pays to know if the numbers add up.
So Miyazaki and his colleague Jun Korenaga pulled together models on fluid mechanics, heat movement, and atmospheric physics to see if they could make the hypothesis work.
The results suggest it could … if a certain kind of rock was exposed on our planet’s surface.
“These rocks would have been enriched in a mineral called pyroxene, and they likely had a dark greenish color,” says Miyazaki.
“More importantly, they were extremely enriched in magnesium, with a concentration level seldom observed in present-day rocks.”
A rapidly churning crust of wet, molten rock packed with pyroxene could account for a rapid loss of all that carbon dioxide in a stabilizing process that would take millions, rather than billions of years.
And then, following a cooling that gave us a regenerating crust consisting of a handful of slowly moving plates, all of that magnesium-rich rock would be left far beneath our feet.
As the crust rapidly turned over, water-logged minerals would have quickly dehydrated, filling the oceans to levels we see today.
The scenario is an intriguing one, not least because such a phenomenon would have helped kick-start life in other ways.
“As an added bonus, these ‘weird’ rocks on the early Earth would readily react with seawater to generate a large flux of hydrogen, which is widely believed to be essential for the creation of biomolecules,” says Korenaga.
It’s the kind of science that’s just begging for hard evidence, which lies buried both deep in time and far under the surface.
No doubt Earth’s ‘hellish’ period will keep its mysteries a little longer. But bit by bit we’re coming to an understanding of why our planet became the paradise we see today.
Mesmerising footage of the Martian sky showing clouds drifting overhead has been captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover.
But rather than being made of water like on Earth, these are composed of carbon dioxide ice because of how high they are on the Red Planet.
Martian clouds are very faint in the atmosphere, so special imaging techniques are needed to see them and produce footage like these two eight-second clips.
They were made using images taken by Curiosity on the 3,325th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission, on December 12, 2021.
In one clip, shadows from the clouds can be seen drifting across the terrain, while the other captures the clouds in the sky directly above Curiosity.
Mesmerising footage of the Martian sky showing clouds drifting overhead has been captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover
Rather than being made of water like on Earth, these are composed of carbon dioxide ice because of how high they are on the Red Planet
Martian clouds are very faint in the atmosphere, so special imaging techniques are needed to see them and produce footage like these two eight-second clips
MARS: THE BASICS
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a ‘near-dead’ dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere.
Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past.
It is one of the most explored planets in the solar system and the only planet humans have sent rovers to explore.
One day on Mars takes a little over 24 hours and a year is 687 Earth days.
Facts and Figures
Orbital period: 687 days
Surface area: 144.8 million km²
Distance from Sun: 227.9 million km
Gravity: 3.721 m/s²
Radius: 3,389.5 km
Moons: Phobos, Deimos
Scientists can calculate how fast the clouds are moving and how high they are in the sky by comparing the two perspectives.
The clouds are very high, nearly 50 miles (80 km) above the surface.
As it is extremely cold at that height, NASA said they are likely to be made of carbon dioxide ice as opposed to water ice clouds, which are typically found at lower altitude.
To be able to see the faint Martian clouds, multiple images are taken to get a clear, static background.
That allows anything else moving within the image (like clouds or shadows) to become visible after subtracting this static background from each individual image, the US space agency said.
The Curiosity mission is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, and since has been roaming around Gale Crater collecting and analysing rock samples, relaying the data back to Earth.
Last month scientists revealed that carbon discovered in Martian sediments by the rover had three plausible origins — including being a chemical trace of ancient microscopic life.
That was the conclusion of Pennsylvania State-led experts, who said the carbon may also have come from cosmic dust or the ultraviolet breakdown of carbon dioxide.
The bacterial theory involves methane, produced by microorganisms living underground, being broken down by ultraviolet radiation on reaching the surface.
All three of these scenarios, the researchers explained, are ‘unconventional’, in that they are quite ‘unlike processes common on Earth.’
In one clip, shadows from the clouds can be seen drifting across the terrain, while the other captures the clouds in the sky directly above Curiosity (pictured)
Scientists can calculate how fast the clouds are moving — and how high they are in the sky — by comparing the two perspectives. The clouds are nearly 50 miles (80km) above the surface
Carbon discovered in Martian sediments by NASA’s Curiosity rover (pictured) has three plausible origins — including being a chemical trace of ancient microscopic life
Curiosity is not the newest rover on Mars — that honour belongs to Perseverance, which arrived with NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter in February this year and is searching for ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.
The Mars Curiosity rover was initially launched from Cape Canaveral, an American Air Force station in Florida on November 26, 2011.
After embarking on a 350 million mile (560 million km) journey, the £1.8 billion ($2.5 billion) research vehicle touched down only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the earmarked landing spot.
The car-sized rover was initially intended to be a two-year mission to gather information to help answer if the planet could support life, has liquid water, study the climate and the geology of Mars.
Due to its success, the mission has been extended indefinitely and has now been active for over 3,000 days.
THE NASA MARS CURIOSITY ROVER LAUNCHED IN 2011 AND HAS IMPROVED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE RED PLANET
The Mars Curiosity rover was initially launched from Cape Canaveral, an American Air Force station in Florida on November 26, 2011.
After embarking on a 350 million mile (560 million km) journey, the £1.8 billion ($2.5 billion) research vehicle touched down only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the earmarked landing spot.
After a successful landing on August 6th, 2012, the rover has travelled about 11 miles (18 km).
It launched on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft and the rover constituted 23 per cent of the mass of the total mission.
With 80 kg (180 lb) of scientific instruments on board, the rover weighs a total of 899 kg (1,982 lb) and is powered by a plutonium fuel source.
The rover is 2.9 metres (9.5 ft) long by 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) wide by 2.2 metres (7.2 ft) in height.
The Mars curiosity rover was initially intended to be a two-year mission to gather information to help answer if the planet could support life, has liquid water, study the climate and the geology of Mars an has since been active for more than 2,000 days
The rover was initially intended to be a two-year mission to gather information to help answer if the planet could support life, has liquid water, study the climate and the geology of Mars.
Due to its success, the mission has been extended indefinitely and has now been active for over 2,000 days.
The rover has several scientific instruments on board, including the mastcam which consists of two cameras and can take high-resolution images and videos in real colour.
So far on the journey of the car-sized robot it has encountered an ancient streambed where liquid water used to flow, not long after it also discovered that billions of years ago, a nearby area known as Yellowknife Bay was part of a lake that could have supported microbial life.
