Monday, August 16, 2021

 

The Shale Pioneer Preparing For A Comeback

By  Tsvetana Paraskova - Aug 15, 2021
One of the U.S. shale pioneers, Chesapeake Energy, is back in business six months after emerging from bankruptcy with a major acquisition— marking its return to the shale gas basin in Louisiana.

Chesapeake Energy was one of the most prominent names in the U.S. shale patch to file for bankruptcy in the middle of last year, although the move had been widely expected. 

Now the reinvented shale gas pioneer is buying Vine Energy, which develops natural gas properties in the over-pressured stacked Haynesville and Mid-Bossier shale plays in Northwest Louisiana. The acquisition is a zero premium transaction valued at approximately $2.2 billion, Chesapeake Energy said this week.  

The acquisition will make the shale giant the top gas producer in Haynesville, with around 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of production and hundreds of locations to drill, Forbes reporter Christopher Helman notes

With the acquisition of Vine Energy, the new Chesapeake Energy is doubling down on shale gas and on Haynesville, half a decade after selling many of its assets in the basin in 2015 and 2016 as it was weighed down by enormous debts, which ultimately forced it to declare bankruptcy last year. 

"This transaction strengthens Chesapeake's competitive position, meaningfully increasing our free cash flow outlook and deepening our inventory of premium gas locations while preserving the strength of our balance sheet," Mike Wichterich, Chesapeake's Board Chairman and Interim CEO, said.

"By consolidating the Haynesville, Chesapeake has the scale and operating expertise to quickly become the dominant supplier of responsibly sourced gas to premium markets in the Gulf Coast and abroad," the executive added. 

Chesapeake Energy's acquisition is indicative of two major trends in U.S. shale. First, it's the ongoing consolidation wave in the patch. And second, many firms are reinventing themselves and pay down debt with cash flows as commodity prices rose this year, or, in Chesapeake's case, emerge from Chapter 11 restructuring with a new management and a new outlook on how to do business without drowning in debt. 

In 2020, the crisis and the low natural gas prices claimed as a prominent victim as Chesapeake, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June. Analysts said this particular filing was a long time coming.

"If I were to describe Chesapeake in one word, that word is 'excess' - excess liabilities, excess costs, excess gas in an oversupplied market," Alex Beeker, principal analyst on Wood Mackenzie's corporate upstream team, said at the time. 

Chesapeake, the poster child of U.S. shale firms "drilling themselves to oblivion," emerged from Chapter 11 in January this year. 

For the second quarter of 2021, the company generated $394 million of operating cash flow and ended the quarter with $612 million cash on hand. 

The firm is "no longer the Chesapeake of the past," Wichterich said, assuring investors it is not overpaying for Vine in the Haynesville deal.  

"We have a super-stable balance sheet," the executive told Reuters in an interview. "There is a tone that is a little different and attitude that is a little different," he added.  

The Chesapeake-Vine deal in the Haynesville basin comes two months after Southwestern Energy said it would buy Haynesville producer Indigo Natural Resources for around $2.7 billion, suggesting that consolidation in the basin has started. 

"Adding Vine brings Chesapeake full circle in the Haynesville. The company sold off a large portion of its ArkLaTex portfolio in multiple deals five years ago. But now with Vine, Chesapeake will return to being the largest Haynesville producer, at over 1.5 bcfd," Wood Mackenzie analysts said, commenting on the deal. 

WoodMac isn't surprised that Chesapeake became more aggressive in operations with its new leadership and refreshed financials. 

"[W] e're not surprised to see the company doubling down on one of its best assets through M&A. The strategic LNG angle is another key forward-looking consideration," the consultancy said, noting that Chesapeake's move toward certification of responsibly sourced gas (RSG) shows "an updated, forward-looking strategy." 

This week's deal makes Chesapeake one of the U.S. shale firms with a 'basin dominance' growth strategy, alongside Pioneer and EQT. 

"And this is the kind of deal investors can support with confidence. The cost savings are more clearly understood," WoodMac said. 

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

 

Do you want to design a perfect robot? Study squirrels


By lucia f. Jacob Nathaniel Hunt and Robert J. 

Tree squirrels are the Olympic divers of the rodent world, leaping gracefully between branches and structures high above the ground. And as with human divers, a squirrel’s success in this competition requires both physical strength and mental adaptability.

Jacobs’ lab studies cognition in wild fox squirrels on the Berkeley campus. Two species: the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) and the fox squirrel (black squirrel) – thrive in campus landscapes and are willing participants in our behavioral experiments. They are also masters at two-dimensional and three-dimensional spatial orientation, using sensory cues to move through space.

In a recently published study, we showed that squirrels jump and land without falling by making trade-offs between the distance they have to cover and the elasticity of their take-off position. This research provides new insights into the roles of decision-making, learning, and behavior in challenging environments that we are sharing with human movement researchers and engineers. Currently, there is no robot as agile as a squirrel, and none that can learn or make decisions about dynamic tasks in complex environments, but our research suggests the kinds of skills these robots would need.

Thinking on the go

While the life of a squirrel may seem simple to human observers (climb, eat, sleep, repeat), it involves finely honed cognitive abilities. Squirrels are specialized seed dispersers: They harvest their winter supply of nuts and acorns over a six to eight week period in the fall, burying each nut separately, and relying on spatial memory to retrieve them, sometimes months later.

Going through the air

Our new study brought together squirrel psychologists and comparative biomechanists to ask whether squirrel cognitive decision-making extends to dynamic changes in locomotion – the famous squirrel leap. How do the squirrels’ perceived capabilities of their bodies and their assumptions about the stability of the environment shape their decisions about movement?

Robert Full of the PolyPEDAL Laboratory is recognized for his studies that extract fundamental design principles through experiments on locomotion in species with unique specializations for movement, from crabs to cockroaches to jumping lizards. Graduate students Nathaniel Hunt, who is trained in biomechanics, and Judy Jinn, who is trained in animal cognition, took on the challenge of evaluating how a jumping squirrel might respond to sudden changes in the location and flexibility of experimental branches.

To study this question in wild squirrels, we designed a magnetic climbing wall that could be ridden on wheels and rolled to Berkeley’s famous eucalyptus forest to meet squirrels on their own lawn. We brought high speed cameras and peanuts to persuade the squirrels to wait patiently for their turn on the wall.

Our goal was to persuade the squirrels to take off from a flexible trampoline attached to the climbing wall and onto a fixed perch protruding from the wall that contained a bounty of shelled walnut. And once again, the squirrels surprised us with their stunts and innovation.

By increasing the springboard’s elasticity and the distance between it and the goal, we could simulate the challenge a squirrel faces as it runs through tree branches that vary in size, shape, and flexibility. Squirrels jumping through a gap must decide where to take off based on a trade-off between the flexibility of the branch and the size of the gap.

We found that squirrels ran farther along a stiff branch, so they had a shorter, easier jump. Rather, they took off with just a few steps of flexible branches, risking a longer leap.

Using three branches that differ in flexibility, we guess the position of your take-off assuming the same risk of jumping from an unstable branch and jump distance. We were wrong: our model showed that squirrels cared six times more for a stable take-off position than the distance they had to jump.

The squirrels then jumped off a very rigid platform. Unbeknownst to the squirrels, we replaced an identical-looking platform that was three times more flexible. From our high-speed video, we calculated how far the center of the squirrel’s body was from the landing perch. This allowed us to determine the landing error – how far the center of the squirrel’s body landed from the goal position. The squirrels quickly learned to jump off the very flexible branch which they expected to be rigid and could catch the landing in just five attempts.

When we raised the ante even higher by raising the height and increasing the distance to the goal perch, the squirrels surprised us. They instantly adopted a novel solution: parkour, literally bouncing off the climbing wall to adjust their speed for a graceful landing. Once again, we discovered the remarkable agility that allows squirrels to evade predators in one of the most challenging environments in nature, the canopy of trees

Millions of people have seen squirrels solve and raid “squirrel-proof” bird feeders, either live in your backyard or in viral documentaries and videos. Like Olympic divers, squirrels must be flexible both physically and cognitively to be successful, making quick bug fixes on the fly and innovating new movements.

With the funding this project attracted, we have teamed up with a team of roboticists, neuroscientists, materials scientists, and mathematicians to extract design principles for squirrel jumps and landings. Our team is even looking for information on brain function by studying jump planning in laboratory rats.

Our analysis of the remarkable feats of squirrels can help us understand how to help humans who have walking or grasping impairments. Additionally, with our interdisciplinary team of biologists and engineers, we are trying to create new materials for the smartest and most agile robot ever built, one that can aid search and rescue efforts and quickly detect catastrophic environmental hazards such as toxic chemicals. releases.

  


 

Ancient fossils of new rodent species discovered in NW China

2021-08-16 XinhuaEditor : Li Yan

3D reconstruction of the fossil teeth of Yuomys robustus (Photo/Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology)

Chinese scientists have discovered ancient fossils in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region and confirmed them as a new species of rodent.

The new species, named Yuomys robustus, is the largest in build and has strongest teeth among all known species of Yuomys, said Gong Hao with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the first author of the study.

The scientists estimated that the new species may have weighed 485 to 880 grams, about two to three times as much as rats.

The teeth of the new species indicate that it lived in the late Eocene, about 38 million to 34 million years ago.

According to the study, from the middle Eocene to the late Eocene, the cheek teeth of Yuomys gradually enlarged while the species' tooth crown height and body mass increased.

Two Gigantic New Dinosaurs Discovered in China
One species is estimated to have been more than 20 meters long.

By Adele Ankers
Updated: 13 Aug 2021

A new study has confirmed the discovery of two new species of dinosaurs in northwest China, which scientists say are some of the first vertebrates uncovered in the region.

The research, published in Nature's Scientific Reports on Thursday, per CNN, is based on the analysis of fossils collected in Xinjiang and the Turpan-Hami Basin. Two of the fossil specimens were found to be from previously unknown species, named Silutitan sinensis ("silu" means "Silk Road" in Mandarin) and Hamititan xinjiangensis (a nod to the related region).

The "titan" part of their monikers refers to the massive size of the newly-discovered dinosaurs. Researchers estimate that the Silutitan species would have measured over 20 meters long, while the Hamititan specimen may have been as big as 17 meters long, making them both close in size to blue whales, which can grow to colossal lengths of 23-30 meters.

Both new species date back to the early Cretaceous period about 120-130 million years ago. They belong to the sauropod family, whose members are known for being large-bodied with characteristically long necks and tails. As per the study, apart from one pterosaur species and a theropod tooth, these dinosaurs are the first vertebrates reported in the region.

Researchers have discovered a number of new dinosaur fossils across the country in recent years, offering new insight into the diversity of the reptiles that once roamed East Asia, though the studies have also triggered some debates, including a discourse over the relationships between the species and their classifications, which is said to be ongoing.

For more dinosaur discoveries and developments, read about the complete skull of the smallest known dinosaur that was found preserved in amber, find out about the tyrannosaur species that scientists dubbed "Reaper of Death", and take a look at another recent study that suggests mercury contamination occurred prior to dinosaur extinction.


Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

 

Astroscale and Mitsubishi team up to develop debris removal technology

Astroscale and MHI will share technical data and technologies for projects that advance sustainable space operations, including on-orbit servicing.





Astroscale, an orbital debris removal and satellite servicing company based in Japan, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), to cooperate on active debris removal and other projects for improving space environmental protection, marking the first collaboration between Astroscale and a launch services provider.

Astroscale Japan has also been selected by the Government of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) to research and develop robotic hand and arm technologies that can be affixed to spacecraft to perform complex servicing activities in orbit and in lunar environments.

The objectives of the three-year contract, budgeted up to $2.5m for the Japanese fiscal year (April 2020 to March 2021), are to research and develop the technologies related to robotic hands and arms, autonomous control, and interfaces to replace robotic hands.

Commenting on the partnership, Nobu Okada, Founder & CEO of Astroscale, said: “Active debris removal and robotic technologies are paving the way for on-orbit services that will form the infrastructure of the global space economy. Astroscale is leading the on-orbit servicing market and providing options, which have not been available until now, for satellite and launch vehicle operators to reduce risk and increase ROI. I would like to thank Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, and the Astroscale team — through these collaborative efforts between industry and government, we can accelerate actions toward an era of space sustainability, while expanding on-orbit servicing business opportunities.”

Astroscale and MHI will share technical data and technologies for projects that advance sustainable space operations,  including on-orbit servicing. Astroscale said that initial efforts will include discussions and the development of debris removal methods for upper stages.

Takayoshi Koyama, Managing Director of Astroscale Japan, added: “We are very pleased to take action with a leading global launch provider on debris removal and move the industry toward a more sustainable future. In order to secure sustainability in space, we must address both the prevention and remediation of debris. At Astroscale, we are doing both and are dedicated to improving the space environment by leading the development of innovative on-orbit servicing solutions across all orbits.”

The project will also analyse the on-orbit servicing market and standardisation trends, reflect them into the development plan and provide recommendations for standardisation. Robotic technology is fundamental to on-orbit servicing activities and is expected to play a key role in base construction activities on the lunar surface for the Artemis space exploration programme.

On June 13, 2021, the G7 Member nations released a statement confirming orbital debris as one of the biggest global challenges facing the space sector and pledged to commit to the safe and sustainable use of space.

 

Science has discovered why sunflowers move by looking at the sun

East-facing sunflowers are happier, Healthy and fruitful than those who face other directions, and all because of the warmth of the morning sun.

That’s the conclusion of a new study that sought to find out why yellow flowers are so cheerful tends to ripen facing east, Despite the more resilient youngsters whose orientation is changing to face the moving sun, according to reports Science alert.

The greatest warmth and light of the rising sun Attracts more bees in the morning, which results in better growth, earlier production of pollen, more abundant seeds, and Greater reproductive success.

“It’s quite surprising that they’re facing east,” said plant biologist Stacey Harmer of the University of California, Davis. “It is better for them to look east from then on. produces more offspring.”

The answer is in the bees, and the reason is strange (AFP).

As they grow, young sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) exhibit a certain behavior: flower head, or head, It moves to follow the sun Across the sky, as seen in the video (above).

In previous research published in 2016, Harmer and colleagues found that this tracer helps both plant and flower growth and pollinator attraction, he reported. Science alert.

However, when a sunflower is ripe, its stalk hardens, which greatly limits the movement. When this happens, the class settles in the East.

Sunflowers move to follow the sun across the sky (DPA).

Sunflowers move to follow the sun across the sky (DPA).

Why sunflowers did this remained a mystery to researchers in 2016, so another team led by UC Davis biologist Nikki Crooks devised an experiment to find out, he reports. Science alert.

They finally figured out why

One way to find out why something is doing the things it does is to change your position so that it no longer does it. With a sunflower facing east, this is very simple – all you have to do is turn them over.

That’s exactly what the researchers did, taking measurements and comparing normal east-facing controls with west-facing sunflowers, they reported. Science alert.

The first thing the researchers noticed was that the east-facing flowers attracted a There are much more bees In the morning. For the rest of the day, the bees showed no preference, indicating that that morning window can make a big difference.

Sunflowers facing east attract more bees in the morning (AFP).

Sunflowers facing east attract more bees in the morning (AFP).

East facing sunflowers also started Release your pollen early in the morning, about 30 minutes, a time that exactly coincided with the time difference between maximum pollinator visiting hours, according to reports. Science alert.

Follow-up analysis indicates that all of this has to do with the separation temperature. The sun warms the flower head, What causes pollen release. When artificially heated, the west-facing flowers showed similar pollen-releasing behavior.

Interestingly, this artificial warming didn’t make a difference in pollinator visits, although it’s not entirely clear why, he says. Science alert.

Attractive bright flowers

The researchers think that the markings on flowers visible to pollinators under ultraviolet sunlight may have something to do with this: In east-facing sunflowers, The flowers were shining These signs were more clearly visible.

The effect on sunflowers was also noticeable. East-facing sunflowers are produced Heavier and more abundant seeds From those facing west. And pollen from east-facing sunflowers appears to have been more successful in producing offspring.

A bee approaches a sunflower (EFE).

A bee approaches a sunflower (EFE).

The researchers discovered this with surrounding sunflowers producing only seeds and no pollen, while sunflowers face east and west. Science alert.

Using genotyping, they then determined whether the seed plants had been pollinated by pollen from the east or west. Remarkably east-facing sunflower produced More offspring From those facing west.

East-facing sunflowers produce more offspring than west-facing sunflowers (Reuters).

East-facing sunflowers produce more offspring than west-facing sunflowers (Reuters).

All of this suggests that while looking east may not be an absolute key to a sunflower’s success, it does provide enough nudge to make it worth your time.

“Our results show that the eastern orientation of the mature sunflower heads plays an important role in managing climate flower It ensures the correct conditions for pollination, pollination and seed development,” the researchers wrote in their paper, Science Alert Reports.

The research has been published in New Phytologist.

Russian space officials try to blame NASA astronaut for Soyuz air leak in 2018: report


By Amy Thompson 2 days ago

NASA says the accusations are baseless.


A closeup image of the suspected drill hole that astronauts discovered in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft in 2018. (Image credit: NASA)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's head of human spaceflight says the agency stands behind its astronauts following claims that a U.S. crewmember at the International Space Station sabotaged a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2018, causing an air leak at the orbiting laboratory.

On Friday afternoon (Aug. 13), during a media teleconference about recent delays with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, NASA's human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders told reporters that the personal attacks against NASA astronaut and Expedition 56 flight engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor were baseless.

"Serena is an extremely well-respected crew member who has served her country and made invaluable contributions to the agency," Lueders told reporters. "And I stand behind Serena — we stand behind Serena and her professional conduct and I did not find this accusation credible."

Related: Space Station commander: It's 'absolutely a shame' to suggest astronauts caused air leak

Lueders expressed those same sentiments on Twitter Friday afternoon, with NASA's administrator, Senator Bill Nelson agreeing.:

"I wholeheartedly agree with Kathy's statement," Nelson tweeted. "I fully support Serena and I will always stand behind our astronauts."
Russian accusations

NASA leadership's statements on Friday follow on the heels of accusations from an unnamed "high-ranking" official with Russia's space agency made in the Russian news agency TASS. The agency claims that in 2018, Auñón-Chancellor had an emotional breakdown in space and then damaged a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that was docked at the station so that she could return to Earth early.

The article, published on Thursday (Aug. 12), responds to criticism from U.S. media in regards to the near-disastrous incident involving Russia's Nauka science module and the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this month.


Related: Space station situation with Russia's Nauka module misfire was more serious than stated


NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor speaks at a bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues event on NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program, at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, in September 2019. (Image credit: Aubrey Gemignani/NASA)

In the TASS article, Russian journalist Mikhail Kotov interviews an anonymous official at Russia's space agency, Roscosmos.

The article is particularly troublesome because it not only names Auñón-Chancellor — the only female astronaut on station at the time — specifically, but it also reveals a medical condition she suffered on-orbit. (Typically NASA keeps all astronaut medical records and conditions private.)

Auñón-Chancellor was treated upon her return to Earth for a deep vein thrombosis, also known as a blood clot, in the jugular vein of her neck. But Kotov implies that dealing with such a condition in space could spur her to want to leave the ISS prematurely, and therefore sabotage the spacecraft that brought her to the orbital outpost in an effort to return home ahead of schedule.

On Aug. 29, 2018, ISS controllers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston noticed a slight pressure drop aboard the orbiting outpost. They notified the crew the next day, and the crew was able to trace the leak to a small hole in Russia's Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, which had docked to the space station in June with Auñón-Chancellor, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev.

Prokopyev, the commander of the Soyuz at the time, solved the problem by patching the 2-millimeter (0.08 inches) hole using epoxy and gauze. NASA officials stressed that the crew was never in any danger.

Russian space officials decided to investigate the leak, determined to find out its cause. Shortly thereafter, Dmitry Rogozin — the head of Roscosmos — announced that the breach in the Soyuz wall was a drill hole. And according to Rogozin, the person who made the hole apparently had "a faltering hand," citing nearby scuff marks that likely resulted when the drill slipped.

Russian officials went one step further insinuating that the unsteady hand was likely due to the culprit drilling in microgravity, meaning one of the crew was to blame — not the Russian engineers involved in the assembly and testing of the Soyuz spacecraft before launch down on Earth.

Space Station astronauts repaired a minor leak in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft (left) on Aug. 30, 2018. A 2-millimeter hole in the orbital module, shown here, caused a slight pressure drop inside the orbiting laboratory. (Image credit: NASA/Space.com)

NASA officials knew the precise locations of the U.S. astronauts before the leak occurred and at the moment it began, thanks to space station surveillance. The video footage indicated that none of the U.S. astronauts on the station were near the Russian segment where the Soyuz vehicle was docked. But the Russians didn't buy it. They were convinced that one of the crew sabotaged the Soyuz.

The recent TASS article takes those claims one step further and insists that NASA video of the ISS could have been tampered with and that Russian officials were denied the chance to examine Russian tools and administer polygraphs, or lie detector tests, to the astronauts.

But the TASS article seems to dismiss the most likely cause of the hole: human error on the ground. The problem most likely happened on Earth, before launch. This was something that Roscosmos was looking into but the agency has never definitively disclosed the results.

Most likely a technician accidentally damaged the Soyuz spacecraft and then tried to cover up the error with a makeshift patch. That patch could have then become dislodged during flight or its time on-orbit after repeated exposure to extreme temperature differences as the station orbits the Earth.

Russia says it will keep source of air leak on Soyuz secret
NASA says air leak won't affect future Soyuz capsules
Cosmonauts seal leak in Russian space station module

Relations between the two space agencies have grown more strained over recent years, but NASA leadership is hopeful for a continued orbital partnership.

Prior to the launch attempt of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on July 30, Nelson told Space.com that he applauded the long-standing relationship between the two agencies. "Terrestrially, we have enormous tensions with Russia, but in space we have cooperation."

Nelson also said that he expects Russia will continue to work with NASA to maintain the ISS and that he hopes to announce sometime soon that a cosmonaut will fly on an upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon flight, something the agency has been trying to arrange for quite some time.

Perhaps cosmonauts will make their U.S. commercial spaceflight debut with the SpaceX Crew-4 mission, currently slated to launch in2022, Nelson has said, but nothing is confirmed yet.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. 




 

Hubble Captures the Brilliant Heart of the Furnace

Galaxy NGC 1385

Hubble Space Telescope image of spiral galaxy NGC 1385, located 68 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Fornax. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team

This jewel-bright image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 1385, a spiral galaxy 68 million light-years away from Earth, which lies in the constellation Fornax. The image was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which is often referred to as Hubble’s workhorse camera, thanks to its reliability and versatility. It was installed in 2009 when astronauts last visited Hubble, and 12 years later it remains remarkably productive. 

NGC 1385’s home — the Fornax constellation — is not named after an animal or an ancient God, as are many of the other constellations. Fornax is simply the Latin word for a furnace. The constellation was named Fornax by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, a French astronomer who was born in 1713. Lacaiile named 14 of the 88 constellations that are still recognized today. He seems to have had a penchant for naming constellations after scientific instruments, including Atlia (the air pump), Norma (the ruler, or set square), and Telescopium (the telescope).

 

Global Warming Begets More Warming: MIT Paleoclimate Researchers Discover a “Warming Bias”

Global Warming Begets More, Extreme Warming

Global warming begets more, extreme warming, a new MIT paleoclimate study finds. Credit: MIT News

Researchers observe a “warming bias” over the past 66 million years that may return if ice sheets disappear.

It is increasingly clear that the prolonged drought conditions, record-breaking heat, sustained wildfires, and frequent, more extreme storms experienced in recent years are a direct result of rising global temperatures brought on by humans’ addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And a new MIT study on extreme climate events in Earth’s ancient history suggests that today’s planet may become more volatile as it continues to warm.

The study, published on August 11, 2021, in Science Advances, examines the paleoclimate record of the last 66 million years, during the Cenozoic era, which began shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The scientists found that during this period, fluctuations in the Earth’s climate experienced a surprising “warming bias.” In other words, there were far more warming events — periods of prolonged global warming, lasting thousands to tens of thousands of years — than cooling events. What’s more, warming events tended to be more extreme, with greater shifts in temperature, than cooling events.

The researchers say a possible explanation for this warming bias may lie in a “multiplier effect,” whereby a modest degree of warming — for instance from volcanoes releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — naturally speeds up certain biological and chemical processes that enhance these fluctuations, leading, on average, to still more warming.

Interestingly, the team observed that this warming bias disappeared about 5 million years ago, around the time when ice sheets started forming in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s unclear what effect the ice has had on the Earth’s response to climate shifts. But as today’s Arctic ice recedes, the new study suggests that a multiplier effect may kick back in, and the result may be a further amplification of human-induced global warming.

“The Northern Hemisphere’s ice sheets are shrinking, and could potentially disappear as a long-term consequence of human actions” says the study’s lead author Constantin Arnscheidt, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “Our research suggests that this may make the Earth’s climate fundamentally more susceptible to extreme, long-term global warming events such as those seen in the geologic past.”

Arnscheidt’s study co-author is Daniel Rothman, professor of geophysics at MIT, and  co-founder and co-director of MIT’s Lorenz Center.

A volatile push

For their analysis, the team consulted large databases of sediments containing deep-sea benthic foraminifera — single-celled organisms that have been around for hundreds of millions of years and whose hard shells are preserved in sediments. The composition of these shells is affected by the ocean temperatures as organisms are growing; the shells are therefore considered a reliable proxy for the Earth’s ancient temperatures.

For decades, scientists have analyzed the composition of these shells, collected from all over the world and dated to various time periods, to track how the Earth’s temperature has fluctuated over millions of years. 

“When using these data to study extreme climate events, most studies have focused on individual large spikes in temperature, typically of a few degrees Celsius warming,” Arnscheidt says. “Instead, we tried to look at the overall statistics and consider all the fluctuations involved, rather than picking out the big ones.”

The team first carried out a statistical analysis of the data and observed that, over the last 66 million years, the distribution of global temperature fluctuations didn’t resemble a standard bell curve, with symmetric tails representing an equal probability of extreme warm and extreme cool fluctuations. Instead, the curve was noticeably lopsided, skewed toward more warm than cool events. The curve also exhibited a noticeably longer tail, representing warm events that were more extreme, or of higher temperature, than the most extreme cold events.

“This indicates there’s some sort of amplification relative to what you would otherwise have expected,” Arnscheidt says. “Everything’s pointing to something fundamental that’s causing this push, or bias toward warming events.”

“It’s fair to say that the Earth system becomes more volatile, in a warming sense,” Rothman adds.

A warming multiplier

The team wondered whether this warming bias might have been a result of “multiplicative noise” in the climate-carbon cycle. Scientists have long understood that higher temperatures, up to a point, tend to speed up biological and chemical processes. Because the carbon cycle, which is a key driver of long-term climate fluctuations, is itself composed of such processes, increases in temperature may lead to larger fluctuations, biasing the system towards extreme warming events.

In mathematics, there exists a set of equations that describes such general amplifying, or multiplicative effects. The researchers applied this multiplicative theory to their analysis to see whether the equations could predict the asymmetrical distribution, including the degree of its skew and the length of its tails.

In the end, they found that the data, and the observed bias toward warming, could be explained by the multiplicative theory. In other words, it’s very likely that, over the last 66 million years, periods of modest warming were on average further enhanced by multiplier effects, such as the response of biological and chemical processes that further warmed the planet.

As part of the study, the researchers also looked at the correlation between past warming events and changes in Earth’s orbit. Over hundreds of thousands of years, Earth’s orbit around the sun regularly becomes more or less elliptical. But scientists have wondered why many past warming events appeared to coincide with these changes, and why these events feature outsized warming compared with what the change in Earth’s orbit could have wrought on its own.

So, Arnscheidt and Rothman incorporated the Earth’s orbital changes into the multiplicative model and their analysis of Earth’s temperature changes, and found that multiplier effects could predictably amplify, on average, the modest temperature rises due to changes in Earth’s orbit.

“Climate warms and cools in synchrony with orbital changes, but the orbital cycles themselves would predict only modest changes in climate,” Rothman says. “But if we consider a multiplicative model, then modest warming, paired with this multiplier effect, can result in extreme events that tend to occur at the same time as these orbital changes.”

“Humans are forcing the system in a new way,” Arnscheidt adds. “And this study is showing that, when we increase temperature, we’re likely going to interact with these natural, amplifying effects.”

Reference: “Asymmetry of extreme Cenozoic climate–carbon cycle events” by Constantin W. Arnscheidt and Daniel H. Rothman, 11 August 2021, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg6864

This research was supported, in part, by MIT’s School of Science.

RUSSIA MOCKS BOEING, OFFERING TO FIX ITS BROKEN STARLINER SPACECRAFT
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.


BOEING/FUTURISM

From Russia With Love

Both SpaceX and Boeing developed spacecrafts designed to hoist astronauts into orbit as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program.

But so far, SpaceX is running circles around Boeing, having launched several astronaut crews to the International Space Station.

Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner has endured setback after setback. Most recently, 13 valves in its propulsion system failed to properly open during a preflight test, yet another delay before finally getting the capsule off the ground.

Now, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos appears to be mocking Boeing’s efforts by offering to help fix the broken Starliner.

According to Russian state news agency TASS, the MV Keldysh research center, owned and operated by Roscosmos, is ready to assist Boeing in solving the many issues it’s facing with Starliner — though it failed to elaborate on exactly how it plans to help out.
Catastrophic Failure

Boeing has had to delay the second launch of its Starliner spacecraft several times since a fateful maiden voyage in December 2019, which almost ended in a “catastrophic failure,” according to a NASA safety review panel.

Ever since, Boeing has been struggling to right Starliner’s many wrongs at NASA’s request.

Starliner has yet to successfully reach the International Space Station, with or without a crew on board.

Whether Russia’s assistance will help the ailing aeronautics corporation to get there is unlikely. Its offer of help does come at an ironic moment, though — just a week after its Nauka module of the ISS accidentally fired its thrusters, flipping the entire station over in a serious safety incident.

“Boeing can’t get Starliner’s propulsion valves open, and Roscosmos couldn’t get Nauka’s propellant valves closed,” quipped one Twitter user. “Maybe there is some synergy there.”

More on Starliner: Something Is Really Screwed Up With Boeing’s Starliner Prototype