Articles by Hannah Bird
Phys.org / Declining Bering Sea ice linked to increasing wildfire hazard in northeast China
China has been making strides in recent years to reduce air pollution, including fitting filters in coal-fired power stations to remove sulfur dioxide from emissions, a molecule that reacts with other compounds in the atmosphere ...
Phys.org / Anthropogenic aerosols could delay enhanced monsoon precipitation by decades
Earth's atmosphere contains fine particles suspended in the air, known as aerosols, occurring from natural sources, such as dust from deserts, volcanic ash, smoke from forest fires, sea salt from ocean spray and organic compounds ...
Phys.org / Atmospheric microplastic transport predominantly derived from oceans, study finds
Microplastics in our natural environments are of increasing concern as these tiny particles (
Phys.org / Fossil results indicate polar bears survived last global warming deglaciation in Siberian and Canadian refugia
Polar bears are a familiar sight to many through the media as we see evocative images of singular bears floating on isolated ice rafts as they face the harsh realities of climate change shrinking sea ice in the Arctic. Their ...
Phys.org / AI predicts sea surface temperature cooling during tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclones are extreme weather events, characterized by a circular form and formation over warm tropical oceans experiencing low atmospheric pressure, high winds and heavy rain. Tropical storms exceed 39 miles per ...
Phys.org / Sand dunes reveal atmospheric wind patterns on Mars
Mars is one of the most explored components of the solar system, yet there are always more discoveries to unveil on Earth's planetary neighbor. On Earth we are able to take direct measurements to understand our planet's meteorological ...
Phys.org / Ediacaran fossils reveal origins of biomineralization that led to expansion of life on Earth
Life on Earth began from a single-celled microbe, while the rise to the multicellular world in which we live arose due a vital chemical process known as biomineralization, during which living organisms produce hardened mineralized ...
Phys.org / Grassland expansion was not a main driver of mammal evolution in Plio-Pleistocene Africa, research suggests
Mammal evolution in Africa, including that of modern human ancestors, through the late Cenozoic (Plio-Pleistocene, ~5.3 million years ago) may not have been driven by the expansion of grasslands as previously thought, new ...
Phys.org / Plate tectonics 4 billion years ago may have helped initiate life on Earth
The Earth's oldest surface layer forming continents, termed its crust, is approximately 4 billion years old and is comprised of 25–50km-thick volcanic rocks known as basalts. Originally, scientists thought that one complete ...
Phys.org / Paleolithic hunter-gatherer hearths reveal changing vegetation in response to climate
Human reliance upon the surrounding environmental for natural resources has aided our survival for thousands of years. While the impact of climate change is an ever-present stressor in current communities, it is not solely ...
Phys.org / Paleolimnological study attributes Tibetan Empire collapse in 9th century to climate change
The Tibetan Empire was the world's highest elevation empire, sitting over 4,000m above sea level, and thrived during 618 to 877 CE. Home to an estimated 10 million people, it spanned approximately 4.6 million km2 across East ...
Phys.org / Himalayan valley sizes are controlled by tectonic-driven rock uplift, study shows
The oceans are the final destination of weathering products from the land and its transport via rivers, with those in the Himalayan mountains alone moving one billion tons of sediment each year. To understand the storage ...
Phys.org / Clay formation prolonged global warming event 40 million years ago, according to new biogeochemical model
Global warming is not solely a modern-day occurrence but has been a prominent feature of Earth's geological history for millennia. One such event occurred approximately 40 million years ago, lasting ~400,000 years, known ...
Phys.org / Afforestation carbon sequestration projects found to be less effective than grasses in tropical savannas
Global warming's ever-increasing toll on the planet has been a focus of mitigation strategies in recent years, with carbon sequestration projects playing a more prominent role in drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere ...
Phys.org / New research finds Late Pleistocene glaciations terminated by Earth's axis tilt rather than orbital eccentricity
Glacial cyclicity of the Earth has often been considered on 100,000 year timescales, particularly for the Late Pleistocene (~11,700 to 129,000 years ago) swapping between periods of extensive polar and mountain glacier ice ...
