Department of Environmental Sciences

This 'hyperarid' desert is transforming into a carbon sink

tomwt — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:55:16 +0000

This 'hyperarid' desert is transforming into a carbon sink tomwt Mon, 03/09/2026 - 08:55 More CNAS in the Media David Nield | Science Alert March 08, 2026

SCIENCE ALERT - One of the driest regions in the world is being transformed into a carbon sink through a long-term, large-scale tree planting program, absorbing more greenhouse gases than it emits.

It's the result of almost five decades of work around the edges of the Taklamakan Desert in northwestern China, and evidence that with the right levels of funding and stability, these afforestation projects can – by some measures – be successful.

The changes at the desert's borders were evaluated by a team of scientists from the United States and China, who used several years of satellite sensor data modeling to analyze CO2 levels, vegetation cover, and weather patterns.

Where large tropical forests like the Amazon readily attract attention as carbon sinks, findings such as this reinforce the contributions smaller bands of trees and shrubs can make. The researchers suggest other deserts could be transformed in the same way.

"This is not like a rainforest in the Amazon or Congo," says King-Fai Li, an atmospheric scientist from the University of California, Riverside. "Some afforested regions are only shrublands like Southern California's chaparral."

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

Scientists are shocked by what’s really in the air we breathe every day

tomwt — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:56:57 +0000

Scientists are shocked by what’s really in the air we breathe every day tomwt Fri, 03/06/2026 - 10:56 More CNAS in the Media Nathalie Mayer & Xavier Demeersman | FUTURA March 06, 2026

FUTURA - These substances are known as plasticisers. They are chemical compounds added to materials to make them softer, more flexible and easier to use. While that might sound harmless, their widespread presence in everyday objects means our exposure is constant.

You can find plasticisers in many common household items. Food storage containers, shower curtains, garden hoses and even upholstery fabrics often contain them. The issue, however, is that several of these chemicals have been identified as toxic.

Among the most well known are compounds called ortho phthalates. Because of growing health and environmental concerns, these substances have gradually been removed from certain manufacturing processes. In response, manufacturers have introduced alternative compounds known as non ortho phthalates.

Yet these substitutes remain something of a mystery. Scientists still know very little about their potential long term effects on human health.

Large quantities of plasticisers detected in the air
Researchers from the University of California have recently highlighted just how widespread these chemicals have become. Their findings show that the air breathed daily by residents of Southern California contains notable levels of both ortho phthalates and their substitutes.

For the scientists involved, the discovery was unexpected.

‘We did not anticipate this,’ explained David Volz, professor of environmental sciences, in a statement released by the University of California Riverside. ‘Because of this, we felt it was important for people to be informed about the results of this study.’

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

David Volz

China's 3,046-kilometer "Great Green Wall" has transformed its largest desert into a carbon sink

tomwt — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:16:14 +0000

China's 3,046-kilometer "Great Green Wall" has transformed its largest desert into a carbon sink tomwt Wed, 02/18/2026 - 08:16 More CNAS in the Media Tom Hale | IFLScience February 18, 2026

IFLSCIENCE - China has a new Great Wall, but this one isn't built of stone and mortar to repel marauding invaders from the north. Instead, the “Great Green Wall” is a vast belt of trees and shrubs lining the bottom of its northern deserts, designed to halt the steady creep of desertification. New research suggests this massive megaproject is already functioning as a vital carbon sink, helping to stabilize the local environment.

Located in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Taklamakan Desert is one of the driest places on Earth and the largest desert in the country. It’s sometimes called the “Sea of Death” and “The Place of No Return” because of its desolate landscape, defined by towering dunes and a scarcity of wildlife.

Since 1978, China has spearheaded an unprecedented afforestation campaign along its southern edge, planting greenery to prevent the desert from swallowing up surrounding farmland. It would also double up as a natural barrier against sandstorms, some of which are so gusty they reach Beijing. It's one part of China's Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, a massive initiative to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert and other arid areas through afforestation.

In 2024, the government announced the completion of a 3,046-kilometre (1,892-mile) green belt around the desert through the planting of billions of trees and shrubs. While some critics questioned whether the Taklamakan Afforestation Project would deliver meaningful environmental benefits, new research led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, suggests it is already making a measurable impact on both the local ecosystem and the global carbon cycle.

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

When human activity dropped during COVID-19, methane levels surprisingly spiked. Now, a study points to two reasons why.

tomwt — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:05:20 +0000

When human activity dropped during COVID-19, methane levels surprisingly spiked. Now, a study points to two reasons why. tomwt Wed, 02/18/2026 - 08:05 More CNAS in the Media Mary Randolph | Smithsonian Magazine February 10, 2026

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - As the world shuttered in 2020 amid Covid-19 lockdowns, scientists expected to see one silver lining to the pandemic: a decrease in air pollution. With fewer cars on the roads and a drop in industrial activity, researchers did notice a dip in daily carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants. But methane, the second-largest contributor to climate change, surprisingly surged to its highest levels in the atmosphere since researchers began measuring it in the 1980s.

Six years later, a team of more than 40 scientists has offered an answer to this chemical mystery in a study published last week in Science, pointing to dynamics in the atmosphere and natural areas.

...

“This paper really highlights the success of all these multitiered methods that we’ve developed as a community,” says Francesca Hopkins, a climate change scientist at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the work, to Fionna Samuels at Chemical and Engineering News. She adds that “the whole globe relies on these datasets.”

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

Francesca Hopkins

Scientists warn against breathing in secondhand vape ‘smoke’

tomwt — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 16:42:35 +0000

Scientists warn against breathing in secondhand vape ‘smoke’ tomwt Tue, 02/03/2026 - 08:42 More CNAS in the Media Ian Randall | Newsweek February 03, 2026

NEWSWEEK - Breathing in lingering, secondhand e-cigarette vapors has the potential to damage lung tissues.

This is the warning of a new study by researchers from the University of California Riverside, who found that aged vape aerosols contain fine particles bearing metals and highly reactive compounds that can combine to produce harmful radical particles.

"Our study reveals that the chemical cocktail of metal nanoparticles and reactive peroxides in aged e-cigarette aerosols creates a unique profile of respiratory health risks," said paper author and environmental scientist Ying-Hsuan Lin in a statement.

The finding, Lin added, highlights "that secondhand vapor is something bystanders shouldn’t have to breathe."

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

Ying-Hsuan Lin

Secondhand vape plumes could form lung-damaging radicals

tomwt — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 19:35:39 +0000

Secondhand vape plumes could form lung-damaging radicals tomwt Mon, 02/02/2026 - 11:35 More CNAS in the Media ACS Newsroom | American Chemical Society January 30, 2026

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY - Electronic cigarettes — or vapes — can release puffs of vapor in aromatic clouds. The health risks of breathing in this secondhand or passive vapor aren’t fully understood. So, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology conducted a preliminary study on lingering vape plumes in indoor environments. They found that aged vapor contained fine particles with several metals and highly reactive compounds, which together produce radicals that might damage lung tissue if inhaled.

“Our study reveals that the chemical cocktail of metal nanoparticles and reactive peroxides in aged e-cigarette aerosols creates a unique profile of respiratory health risks, highlighting that secondhand vapor is something by-standers shouldn't have to breathe,” says Ying-Hsuan Lin, the corresponding author of the study from the University of California, Riverside.

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

Ying-Hsuan Lin

Scientists issue warning after discovering concerning phenomenon in forests: 'These results flip our assumptions'

tomwt — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 15:44:29 +0000

Scientists issue warning after discovering concerning phenomenon in forests: 'These results flip our assumptions' tomwt Fri, 01/02/2026 - 07:44 More CNAS in the Media Catherine Wilkins | The Cool Down December 26, 2025

THE COOL DOWN - Rising global temperatures are still a major concern for scientists, but new research found that warmer and drier conditions might actually lower the amount of pollution released into the atmosphere in certain forests.

What's happening?
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, found that rising global temperatures may be reducing nitrogen emissions in places with little rainfall, according to UCR News.

The study, published in the journal PNAS, was led by a team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers based in Shenyang City, China.

Per UCR News, global temperatures are expected to rise by about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-century. Researchers simulated the change in forest plots using mounted infrared heaters and discovered that nitrous oxide emissions dropped 16%.

The study found that warmer conditions led to dry soils and reduced gas emissions in areas with less than 40 inches of rain per year. However, warming increased nitrogen loss in wetter forests.

Pete Homyak, an associate professor of environmental sciences, said soil moisture is critical for research.

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

Peter Homyak

Hotter, drier soils are changing how forests breathe nitrogen

tomwt — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 22:38:35 +0000

Hotter, drier soils are changing how forests breathe nitrogen tomwt Wed, 12/03/2025 - 14:38 More CNAS in the Media Sanjana Gajbhiye | Earth.com December 03, 2025

EARTH.COM - Forest soils are constantly talking – not in words but through quiet chemical exchanges between microbes, roots, and the air above them.

For years, scientists had assumed that warming temperatures would speed up this underground chatter and release more nitrogen gases into the atmosphere.

But long-term fieldwork is now revealing something different. Heat alone doesn’t control these reactions. Water scarcity, seasonal freeze-thaw cycles, and shifting microbial groups play far bigger roles than expected.

A new multi-year experiment shows just how surprising forest soil behavior can be when warming is studied in real landscapes instead of in lab jars.

Forest nitrogen in a warming world
Earlier forecasts suggested rising temperatures would accelerate forest nitrogen gas loss, robbing soils of nutrients vital for tree growth while contributing to atmospheric pollution.

This expectation was contradicted by a recent study from UC Riverside (UCR). The research was focused on a temperate forest in northeastern China and supported by more than 200,000 measurements.

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

More dust storms called haboobs are coming to California, thanks to climate change

tomwt — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 15:20:47 +0000

More dust storms called haboobs are coming to California, thanks to climate change tomwt Thu, 09/04/2025 - 08:20 More CNAS in the Media Susanne Rust | LA Times August 27, 2025

LOS ANGELES TIMES - For anyone wondering whether intense dust storms, such as the haboob that enveloped Phoenix this week, are possible in Southern California, the answer is yes.

They’ve hit in the recent past and are a growing issue over much of Southern California and the Central Valley, thanks to the drying associated with climate change, water overuse, wildfires, off-roading, tractors on dry soil, and construction, experts say.

In 2022, for instance, there was a massive haboob in the Salton Sea area. The dust from that nighttime storm — with a 3,000-foot-high wall of dust and 60-mph winds — went all the way to Los Angeles.

“It was insane,” said Amato Evan, a climate researcher at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It was so thick that cameras picked it up in Riverside, he said. More sensitive instruments measured the particles all the way from Lake Elsinore to Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles. He said a similar storm occurred in 2023.

Both of those storms were on the same scale as the one in Arizona this week, but they happened at night and in far less populated areas.

“Dust storms are a widespread air quality problem across California, especially in those areas that are dry and getting drier,” William Porter, a professor of atmospheric dynamics and modeling at UC Riverside, said in an email.

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

William Porter

Where there’s fire, there’s smoke

tomwt — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 22:49:27 +0000

Where there’s fire, there’s smoke tomwt Tue, 08/26/2025 - 15:49 More CNAS in the Media Emily Dieckman | Eos August 26, 2025

EOS - Gale Sinatra and her husband fled their Altadena, Calif., home on 7 January with little more than overnight bags, taking just one of their two cars.

“We thought we were going to be gone overnight,” Sinatra said. “We thought they’d get the fire under control and we’d get back in.”

When the couple did return, weeks later, it was to dig through the rubble of their former home, burned to the ground by the Eaton Fire.

Though they escaped with their lives, health hazards were not behind Sinatra, her husband (who chose not to be named for this story), and others from their neighborhood. The Eaton and nearby Palisades fires filled the Los Angeles Basin with a toxic haze for days, and cleanup efforts threatened to loft charred particles long after the fires were out.

Teams of scientists from across the country, along with community members, monitored air quality in the weeks following the fire, seeking to learn more about respiratory health risks and inform community members about how to protect themselves.

...

“From mattresses to carpets to paint to electronics, everything like that burns,” said Roya Bahreini, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Bahreini is also co–principal investigator of the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry Measurement Network (ASCENT), a long-term air quality monitoring project led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, UCR, and the University of California, Davis (UC Davis).

ASCENT, which launched in 2021, has stations across the country, including three in Southern California. During the January fires in Los Angeles, which tore through not only Altadena (an unincorporated inland community) but also neighborhoods along the coast, these stations detected levels of lead, chlorine, and bromine at orders of magnitude higher than usual.

Read the Full Article

Tags

Department of Environmental Sciences

Roya Bahreini