It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A study in the International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering has investigated the e-commerce landscape and how it is affected by financial crises. The insights from the study offer a financial accounting crisis early warning system that companies might use to predict and pre-empt economic turmoil.
The global pandemic underscored the vulnerability of businesses and economies, making the need for astute financial foresight more crucial than ever. Xiaoyang Meng of the Accounting Institute at Jiaozuo University in Jiaozuo, China, has looked specifically at the impact on China and has devised a novel system that melds adaptability and prediction.
The approach uses partial least squares (PLS) analysis, a sophisticated data analysis technique, and integrates it with the backpropagation (BP) neural network. The model can then discern the indicators of impending financial distress within the e-commerce sector. Meng has demonstrated the model's proficiency on historical data for 11 financially sound enterprises and nine that were teetering on the brink of financial crisis and shown that the model could reveal the early signs of financial distress with an accuracy surpassing 90% and for some tests an accuracy of 98%.
The implications of this research may well be far-reaching. In an era where economic turbulence threatens the stability of even the most robust business, Meng's PLS-BP model offers a grounded means to identify an imminent crisis and so put in place strategies that might avert it.
Meng acknowledges that the model as it stands has some limitations. While the early detection methodology offers good levels of precision, it is essentially a static approach. To better navigate real-world financial ecosystems, she proposes the integration of the model with system dynamics theory. This could potentially then offer a dynamic early warning system capable of adapting to the ever-evolving intricacies of e-commerce.
More information: Xiaoyang Meng, Research on e-commerce neural network financial accounting crisis early warning model combined with partial least squares, International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering (2023). DOI: 10.1504/IJCSYSE.2023.132913
Patents were meant to reward inventions. It's time to talk about how they might not
by Rebecca Giblin, Anders Furze and Kimberlee Weatherall, The Conversation
Credit: Shutterstock
For hundreds of years, we've been told patents help deliver big new inventions, such as life-saving drugs.
They are meant to be a bargain between the inventor and the public: tell us how your invention works, and we'll give you a fixed time—a patent protection period—in which you're the only person who can make use of it.
Such exclusive rights make it easier for inventors to profit from their investments in research and development, and in theory encourage innovation we wouldn't get otherwise, which benefits us all.
We've long had to accept this bargain on faith. But those core assumptions about patents are increasingly being subject to empirical testing, and—as we detail in a new podcast starting this week—often coming up short.
Many claimed inventions likely don't work
Consider the most basic assumption—that the public will benefit from patented technologies—both as products and services and as building blocks for more innovation. That's meant to be achieved by inventors coming up with inventions that work, then telling the patent office how they work.
But research by Janet Freilich from Fordham University in the United States suggests there is a "replicability crisis" in patent claims that rivals those in other fields.
Freilich graded the experiments said to back up 500 life sciences patents against the requirements of the journal Nature—and found as many as 90% didn't stack up and probably couldn't be reproduced.
She says, "patent law relies on the assumption that, when a patent is filed, it has been "reduced to practice"—meaning that the invention works. The reality is that most inventions likely do not work, casting serious doubt on this assumption."
One of the reasons is the way the patent system works.
Under the "first-to-file" system, when two inventors are developing similar technologies, the inventor who gets to the patent office first gets the patent. Freilich argues this means that any experiments they do conduct will inevitably be quick and preliminary.
Worse still, only 45% of the patents she examined were backed up by any sort of experiment. The remaining 55% were supported only by speculative and hypothetical evidence. This is allowed under patent law at least in some countries, but it does raise questions about what exactly the public gets out of the system.
Research sometimes accelerates when patents expire
We're also told we grant patents to "incentivize" (encourage and reward) the kind of work needed to get expensive products, like new drugs, to market.
But again, this theory doesn't always match the practice.
Research led by John Liddicoat of King's College London finds that in the development of many drugs, the most expensive trials (Phase II and Phase III) actually accelerate once patent protection expires, when universities and hospitals feel free to step in.
This raises a number of serious questions:
why aren't patents providing an incentive for patent holders to do these trials?
should we shorten the length of patents to bring forward trials?
are commercial organizations best suited for trials?
Generative AI could also lead to more patents: in the words of the government agency IP Australia, it is likely to reduce "the barrier to creating novelty." This could potentially overwhelm patent offices with even lower quality patents.
It is also likely to mean patent examiners can no longer rely on the default assumption that the claimed invention is solely the result of human exertion, raising the possibility of needing to rethink the patent bargain.
Invention matters more than ever
More and more, new research and new developments are telling us we can no longer take the claims made for the patent system on faith.
That makes this an ideal time to talk about whether our patent system is best equipped for that task, exploring a range of options for finding and applying the innovations we need—and bringing in voices and perspectives that are too often marginalized in intellectual property debates.
These ideas are discussed in the first episode of IP Provocations, a new podcast asking challenging and sometimes controversial questions around IP and data. You can listen here, or via your favorite podcast platform.
Just watched a rom-com on Netflix? Well, now there are "top picks" just like it in your queue, thanks to the streaming service's matching system.
Every time you engage with Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix and other online sites, algorithms are busy behind the scenes chronicling your activities and queuing up recommendations tailored to what they know about you. The invisible work of algorithms and recommendation systems spares people from a deluge of information and ensures they receive relevant responses to searches.
But Sachin Banker says a new study shows that subtle gender biases shape the information served up to consumers. The study, co-authored by Shelly Rathee, Arul Mishra and Himanshu Mishra, has been published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
"Everything you're consuming online is filtered through some kind of recommendation system," said Banker, an assistant professor of marketing in the David Eccles School of Business, "and what we're interested in understanding is whether there are subtle biases in the types of information that are presented to different people and how this affects behavior."
Banker, who researches how people interact with technology, said gender bias is relatively easy to study because Facebook provides information about that social characteristic. And it is not necessarily surprising that algorithms, which make word associations based by all the texts on the internet, pick up biases since they exist in human language. The bigger questions are to what extent is this happening and what are the consequences.
In their multi-step study, the researchers first demonstrated that gender biases embedded in language are incorporated in algorithms—associating women with negative psychographic attributes such as impulsivity, financially irresponsibility and irrationality.
The team then tweaked a single word in an ad—"responsible" versus "irresponsible"—to see who subsequently received it; they found ads with negative psychographic attributes were more likely to be delivered to women even though there was no basis for such differentiation.
It's a self-perpetuating loop, the researchers found, because undiscerning consumers reinforce the algorithmic gender bias by often clicking on the ads and accepting the recommendations they receive.
"There are actual consequences of this bias in the marketplace," Banker said. "We've shown that people are split into different kinds of consumption bubbles and that influences your thoughts and behaviors and reinforces historical biases."
For online technology companies, the study indicates a greater need for proactive work to minimize gender bias in algorithms used to serve up consumer ads and recommendations, Banker said. People advertising products may want to test an ad before launch to detect any subtle bias that might affect delivery. And consumers should be aware of the biases at play as they scroll through their feeds and visit online sites and engage in healthy skepticism about ads and recommendations.
Most people, he said, don't totally understand how these things work because the online giants don't disclose much about their algorithms, though Amazon appears to be providing more information to consumers about the recommendations they receive.
And while this study focused on gender bias, Banker said biases likely exist for other social characteristics, such as age, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, etc.
More information: Shelly Rathee et al, Algorithms propagate gender bias in the marketplace—with consumers' cooperation, Journal of Consumer Psychology (2023). DOI: 10.1002/jcpy.1351
The Big Wasp Survey, a citizen science project involving thousands of volunteers throughout the UK, has yielded important genetic insights into the common wasp, reports a study led by UCL researchers.
Using data and samples of Vespula vulgaris (a species of yellowjacket wasp known as the common wasp) collected by amateur "citizen scientists," the researchers conducted the first large-scale genetic analysis of the insect across its native range.
The insights, published in Insect Molecular Biology, revealed a single population of the wasp across Britain, while the insect's genetics were more differentiated across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland. The researchers say this demonstrates that the wasp is effective at dispersing itself widely, which may be one reason for its success in human-modified environments, both in its native range in Europe and as an invasive species in Asia and elsewhere.
Lead author Iona Cunningham-Eurich (UCL Center for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UCL Biosciences, and the Natural History Museum), who began the research as an MSci student before beginning a Ph.D. at UCL, said, "Vespula vulgaris is one of the most familiar wasps to most of us in the UK, as we very commonly see it in late summer.
"Despite the wasp being ubiquitous in Britain, a lot of research has been conducted outside of its native range, so this study is important in establishing a baseline of information about the common wasp's ecology and dispersal behaviors at home.
"By finding a single, intermixing population across Britain, our findings add to evidence that the common wasp is very good at spreading across the landscape, which may be because the queens are able to fly great distances, either on their own steam, aided by the wind, or accidentally transported by people."
The Big Wasp Survey, sponsored by the Royal Entomological Society, has been running annually since 2017. Anyone can take part by making a homemade trap with an old plastic bottle with a little bit of beer to entice wasps. For the first few years, citizen scientists were asked to send in the wasps they had trapped, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, participants have been taught how to identify their wasps at home using online videos.
For the present study, the UCL-led research team analyzed 393 wasp samples collected in the first two years of the survey. By comparing samples collected all across the country, the researchers were able to find evidence of high rates of gene flow, contributing to little genetic differentiation across Britain.
Co-author and co-founder of the Big Wasp Survey, Professor Adam Hart (University of Gloucestershire) said, "Our study showcases the potentially immense value of citizen science projects. Even though the samples were simply and inexpertly preserved, we were still able to conduct advanced genetic analyses and yield very useful findings. We are very grateful to our citizen scientists, as this could not have been achieved without people willing to volunteer their time to contribute to scientific research."
In its first five years, 3,389 people took part in the Big Wasp Survey, collecting over 62,000 wasps. The data have produced reliable species distribution maps that are comparable in quality to those generated from four decades worth of data collected by experts, and the researchers are continuing to gain new insights into the diversity and distribution of social wasp species across the UK. The survey may also help to detect the yellow legged Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), which is an invasive species across Europe and has occasionally been sighted in the UK.
Senior author and co-founder of the Big Wasp Survey, Professor Seirian Sumner (UCL Center for Biodiversity & Environment research, UCL Biosciences) said, "Wasps are incredibly important as natural pest controllers and pollinators, so it's very exciting that we're able to improve our understanding of this common and fascinating insect with the support of citizen scientists, while also giving them the opportunity to get better acquainted with wasps, and see this much maligned insect in a different light."
The Big Wasp Survey is seeking citizen scientists for its end-of-summer sampling week, commencing 26 August; visit www.bigwaspsurvey.org to register and find out more.
New study uses video to show honey bees switch feeding mechanisms as resource conditions vary
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Within nature, the compatibility of animals' feeding mechanisms with their food sources determines the breadth of available resources and how successfully the animals will feed. Those who feed on the nectar of flowers, such as honey bees (Apis mellifera), encounter a range of corolla depths and sugar concentrations. The nectar of flowers comprises the prime source of energy and water for honey bees, who are dominant pollinators throughout the world.
Regional climate conditions contribute to plants producing nectar in various volumes and concentrations, and evaporation and pollinator feeding frequently leaves the nectar reservoirs of flowers below capacity. Thus, honey bees' ability to feed "profitably" under naturally varying resource conditions is advantageous.
An international research team has studied the feeding mechanisms of honey bees and has reported on how these bees switch between using suction and lapping to derive maximum benefit from flowers of varied sizes and concentrations of sugar. The team's study, titled "Honey bees switch mechanisms to drink deep nectar efficiently," is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS).
Prior research has studied suction and lapping feeding behaviors in honey bees, but this paper notes that earlier studies have included an "unnatural condition of virtually unlimited nectar supplies. Such large nectar pools are rare in the flowers they visit in the wild."
In this study, the team shows that during feeding, the distance between the honey bees' mouthparts and the nectar, as well as the concentration of sugar within the nectar, are determining factors in whether the bees procure it via suction or lapping.
Microparticles showing how a honey bee sucks deep nectar. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2305436120
The feeding mechanism of honey bees consists of a long, thin proboscis that includes a pair of labial palpi inside a pair of elongated galea (lobes). This structure serves as a feeding tube, and the bee's hairy glossa (tongue) is situated inside.
For this study, the researchers pre-starved honey bees, fed them sucrose solutions of 10%, 30%, and 50% w/w contained in capillary tubes, and used high-speed videography to record the bees' feeding behavior with each. Blue dye, which had no nutritional effect, was added to each solution for visual contrast, and the bees tolerated it well.
At the 10% w/w concentration, bees inserted their proboscides deep into the solution and extended their tongues beyond the proboscis tubes to suction the liquid until they could no longer reach the meniscus.
At 30% w/w—an approximate concentration commonly found in nature, according to the research—the bees began by quickly lapping the solution, slowing down as the liquid level receded, and gradually switched to suction until the liquid receded beyond their reach.
Microparticles showing how a honey bee sucks deep nectar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2305436120
At 50% w/w, the bees lapped the solution, beginning rapidly and slowing as the liquid receded, and did not transition to suction at all. Notably, the bees showed a smaller decrease in lapping frequency at 50% w/w than during their transitions to suction at 30% w/w.
The researchers conclude that short-distance lapping helps honey bees most efficiently gather nectar to fill the maximum collection capacity of their tongues, but lapping at longer distances would be less efficient than suction due to more time needed for capillary filling. The decreased lapping frequency observed with the thickest of the tested nectars indicates an allowance for the capillary rise needed for maximum tongue-saturation capacity.
In summary, regardless of nectar depth, lapping is a better strategy for honey bees collecting nectars of high sugar concentrations, and suction is faster for those with lower concentrations of sugar.
The team also believes that the feeding mechanism switching behavior may be a unique ability among this species. Noting a previous study published in Soft Matter in which bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) did not switch between feeding behaviors with nectars of varying viscosities, the team in this study also used a solution of 10% w/w with bumble bees to test whether this would change according to their distance from the liquid, but it did not; the bumble bees only exhibited lapping.
Furthermore, previous research with orchid bees (Euglossini) has shown that they mainly use their long proboscides to procure nectar via suction, but that they have exhibited both suction and lapping with small amounts (films) of nectar. However, there is currently no evidence to show that orchid bees make this switch based on corolla depth or nectar properties.
The research team included members from China's Sun Yat-Sen University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and School of Advanced Manufacturing, The University of Washington Department of Biology and Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in the U.S., South Africa's University of Pretoria Department of Zoology and Entomology; Belgium's Université libre de Bruxelles, Nonlinear Physical Chemistry Unit and Université de Mons, Laboratoire InFlux; and Kiel University's Department of Zoology in Germany.
More information: Jiangkun Wei et al, Honey bees switch mechanisms to drink deep nectar efficiently, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2305436120
Illustration of exfiltration and infiltration processes. Illustration explains how exfiltration or infiltration of groundwater occurs due to unloading or loading of ice sheets over saturated subglacial sediment half-space. At the ice-sediment interface, z = 0 and z increases down into sediment. Credit: Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh3693
Up to twice the amount of subglacial water that was originally predicted might be draining into the ocean—potentially increasing glacial melt, sea level rise, and biological disturbances.
Two Georgia Tech researchers, Alex Robel and Shi Joyce Sim, have collaborated on a new model for how water moves under glaciers. The new theory shows that up to twice the amount of subglacial water that was originally predicted might be draining into the ocean—potentially increasing glacial melt, sea level rise, and biological disturbances.
The paper, published in Science Advances, "Contemporary Ice Sheet Thinning Drives Subglacial Groundwater Exfiltration with Potential Feedbacks on Glacier Flow," is co-authored by Colin Meyer (Dartmouth), Matthew Siegfried (Colorado School of Mines), and Chloe Gustafson (USGS).
While there are pre-existing methods to understand subglacial flow, these techniques involve time-consuming computations. In contrast, Robel and Sim developed a simple equation, which can predict how fast exfiltration, the discharge of groundwater from aquifers under ice sheets, using satellite measurements of Antarctica from the last two decades.
"In mathematical parlance, you would say we have a closed form solution," explains Robel, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "Previously, people would run a hydromechanical model, which would have to be applied at every point under Antarctica, and then run forward over a long time period." Since the researchers' new theory is a mathematically simple equation, rather than a model, "the entirety of our prediction can be done in a fraction of a second on a laptop," Robel says.
Robel adds that while there is precedence for developing these kinds of theories for similar kinds of models, this theory is specific in that it is for the particular boundary conditions and other conditions that exist underneath ice sheets. "This is, to our knowledge, the first mathematically simple theory which describes the exfiltration and infiltration underneath ice sheets."
"It's really nice whenever you can get a very simple model to describe a process—and then be able to predict what might happen, especially using the rich data that we have today. It's incredible," adds Sim, a research scientist in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "Seeing the results was pretty surprising."
One of the main arguments in the paper underscores the potentially large source of subglacial water—possibly up to double the amount previously thought—that could be affecting how quickly glacial ice flows and how quickly the ice melts at its base. Robel and Sim hope that the predictions made possible by this theory can be incorporated into ice sheet models that scientists use to predict future ice sheet change and sea level rise.
A dangerous feedback cycle
Aquifers are underground areas of porous rock or sediment rich in groundwater. "If you take weight off aquifers like there are under large parts of Antarctica, water will start flowing out of the sediment," Robel explains, referencing a diagram Sim created. While this process, known as exfiltration, has been studied previously, focus has been on the long time scales of interglacial cycles, which cover tens of thousands of years.
There has been less work on modern ice sheets, especially on how quickly exfiltration might be occurring under the thinning parts of the current-day Antarctic ice sheet. However, using recent satellite data and their new theory, the team has been able to predict what exfiltration might look like under those modern ice sheets.
"There's a wide range of possible predictions," Robel explains. "But within that range of predictions there is the very real possibility that groundwater may be flowing out of the aquifer at a speed that would make it a majority, or close to a majority of the water that is underneath the ice sheet."
If those parameters are correct, that would mean there's twice as much water coming into the subglacial interface than previous estimates assumed.
Ice sheets act like a blanket, sitting over the warm earth and trapping heat on the bottom, away from Antarctica's cold atmosphere—and this means that the warmest place in the Antarctic ice sheet is at the bottom of a sheet, not on the surface. As an ice sheet thins, the warmer underground water can exfiltrate more readily, and this heat gradient can accelerate the melting that an ice sheet experiences.
"When the atmosphere warms up, it takes tens of thousands of years for that signal to diffuse through an ice sheet of the size of the thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet," Robel explains. "But this process of exfiltration is a response to the already-ongoing thinning of the ice sheet, and it's an immediate response right now."
Broad implications
Beyond sea level rise, this additional exfiltration and melt has other implications. Some of the places of richest marine productivity in the world occur off the coast of Antarctica, and being able to better predict exfiltration and melt could help marine biologists better understand where marine productivity is occurring, and how it might change in the future.
Robel also hopes this work will open the doorway to more collaborations with groundwater hydrologists who may be able to apply their expertise to ice sheet dynamics, while Sim underscores the need for more fieldwork.
"Getting the experimentalists and observationalists interested in trying to help us better constrain some of the properties of these water-laden sediments—that would be very helpful," Sim says. "That's our largest unknown at this point, and it heavily influences the results."
"It's really interesting how there's a potential to draw heat from deeper in the system," she adds. "There's quite a lot of water that could be drawing more heat out, and I think that there's a heat budget there that could be interesting to look at."
Moving forward, collaboration will continue to be key. "I really enjoyed talking to Joyce (Sim) about these problems," Rober says, "because Joyce is an expert on heat flow and porous flow in the Earth's interior, and those are problems that I had not worked on before. That was kind of a nice aspect of this collaboration. We were able to bridge these two areas that she works on and that I work on."
More information: Alexander A. Robel et al, Contemporary ice sheet thinning drives subglacial groundwater exfiltration with potential feedbacks on glacier flow, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh3693
Associate Professor Yoshi N. Sasaki, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University. Credit: Hokkaido University
Associate Professor Yoshi N. Sasaki, a specialist in Physical Oceanography, is involved in research into rising sea levels—particularly in coastal areas of Japan. He spoke about what he has learned so far about the relationship between ocean currents, sea level and climate change, what research he is currently focusing on, and the appeal of research that uses numerical modeling to uncover natural phenomena.
It is a common view among researchers that the global mean sea level is rising. The only question now is, by how much will it rise?
The graph below shows global average sea level, with tide-gauge data since 1880 and satellite data since 1993. It shows that the water level rose at a rate of about 1.5 to 2 millimeters per year in the 20th century, but has increased at a faster rate of about 3 millimeters per year in the 21st century. This speed is expected to increase further in the future as global warming continues.
Global mean sea level (1880-2014).
Credit: Copyright CSIRO Australia
Indeed, on the US coast, for example in Florida, many people live on low land, and sea levels are rising faster than in other areas of the ocean. In such areas, dike building and migration are already being considered.
Researchers are now focusing on detailed predictions of what will cause sea level changes, when, in which areas, and to what extent.
As this graph is a "global average," the actual situation at different locations is much more nuanced than this alone reveals. To clarify this, simulations using numerical models are being carried out. Sea level is the sum of multiple factors
Sea level rise does not occur uniformly across the globe, but varies greatly from one ocean region to another. The causes also vary between global changes and changes in some ocean regions.
There are two main causes of sea level rise on average across the globe. The first is the thermal expansion of seawater due to warming caused by global warming. The second is the melting of glaciers and ice sheets due to global warming. Water that was previously trapped on land as ice flows into the sea, increasing the mass of seawater and causing sea levels to rise.
Play15 questions for climate change researcher Dr. Yoshi N. Sasaki.
Credit: Space Time for Hokkaido University
There are many different mechanisms by which sea level changes in different ocean regions. To give a few examples: one, variations in ocean circulation. Due to the physics of geostrophic currents, the sea level in the Northern Hemisphere is higher on the right side and lower on the left side in relation to the direction of the ocean currents. Two, changes in atmospheric pressure. Three, changes in the ground—the ground also sinks and rises, which changes the height of the coastal water table.
In other words, to predict sea level in an area, a combination of these factors needs to be taken into account. Specifically, the effects of each of these factors can be added together to estimate the actual rise in sea level, to some extent.
Understanding natural mechanisms using numerical models
My research involves computer simulations, using regional ocean models of the US. In principle, the model can reproduce the state of the ocean by feeding it with observed data such as atmospheric winds and temperatures.
For example, if we know that a change in water levels is caused by wind fluctuations, we can make predictions of future changes in water levels by knowing what the winds will be like in the future.
Although I simply said "By wind fluctuations," it is about understanding the mechanisms of nature. For me, it's something very enjoyable that satisfies my intellectual curiosity.
Naturally, it is not a straightforward process. Models are very complex, and to understand the mechanism, the model must first be able to reproduce the phenomena accurately. Once that is done, a "simpler model" that reproduces the same situation can be developed, revealing new principles hidden in nature. We need to look at the results of the complex models to find the essence of what is important.
When I was doing research in the US, I discovered a new mechanism that changed the ocean circulation. To someone outside the field, it would have looked like just a diagram, but after working on it for a very long time, it suddenly looked like important information that no one had ever seen before. This is the best part of research.
Sea level fluctuations vary from sea area to sea area.
Credit: Yoshi N. Sasaki
Water level fluctuations along the coast of Japan
Water levels along the Japanese coast are also currently rising, but it is known that they did not rise all the way through the 20th century—they peaked once around 1950 and then fell.
Our research has shown that the peak around 1950 was dominated by wind effects. In particular, it seems to have been caused by fluctuations in ocean circulation due to wind fluctuations from a low-pressure system called the Aleutian Low. On the other hand, the rise in recent years has been found to be primarily due to the effects of heat and other factors at the sea surface. Assessing the impact of typhoons and storm surges
In the future, typhoons and extratropical cyclones are predicted to become stronger. So far, research has been conducted on how sea level changes on long-term time scales of a decade or more, but the possibility that short-term fluctuations, such as storm surges, could cause major damage cannot be ignored.
In order to assess such impacts, we need to know exactly how typhoons and extra-tropical cyclones will strengthen in the future, and how this will affect sea levels. I am currently working on this with students, and we are hoping to get this project off the ground.
Mean sea level anomalies along the coast of Japan (1906-2020). Source: website of the Japan Meteorological Agency. Credit: Japan Meterological Agency
The sea level in the Northern Hemisphere is higher on the right side and lower on the left side in relation to the direction of the ocean currents. Credit: Yoshi N. Sasaki
Sea level rise is one aspect of the wider ocean
Right now, the resolution of ocean models for global warming simulations is approximately 100 kilometers, and can be narrowed down to 10 kilometers at the finest. This may be sufficient for some ocean regions, but it is not sufficient at all for some topographies, so I would like to create more detailed models and incorporate methods such as statistics and machine learning to estimate.
On the other hand, there is also a conflict between effective measures and the economic aspects. For example, in the US, there were very specific discussions about the cost of migration to avoid the influence of sea level rise and the cost of building dikes, and which is better. Once you know certain things, the rest is no longer in the field of science, but in the field of politics or in the field of society. It's about how much accuracy society demands.
I myself would like to go back to the theme of ocean currents and look for more interesting and important phenomena caused by ocean currents once I have gone through sea level rise. I think there are still many interesting phenomena caused by ocean currents, such as ocean circulation. My dream for the future is to elucidate the mechanisms of these phenomena.
The prevalence of blue-green algae blooms in southern Ontario will become more frequent as temperatures rise, say Brock University researchers.
The hot, dry periods from June to August create perfect conditions for harmful algae to grow, impacting fish populations and potentially putting human and pet health at risk.
Brock researchers Vaughn Mangal, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, and Kelly Biagi, assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, are investigating what nutrients are entering the water that contribute to uncontrollable algae growth and the neurotoxins that shut down beaches and recreational water activities.
"These harmful algae blooms are triggered by excess nutrients, primarily phosphorus and nitrogen, from agricultural activities, such as applied fertilizers that runoff from the land to waterways," says Mangal. "The need for interventions and management from municipalities and provincial governments will continue to grow to help regulate how much fertilizer is used."
The Niagara region and Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area is a hub for human activity with a lot of agriculture, cargo ships and industrial effluents discharging inorganic pollutants and excess nutrients in harbors, lakes and waterways, Mangal says.
Understanding how contaminants, including excess nutrients, move from land to water is a major focus of Mangal and Biagi's research.
With expertise in hydrology, Biagi studies how water physically moves through ecosystems, which includes all components of the water cycle from precipitation and evaporation to water flow through rivers, wetlands and groundwater.
"Water drives the movement of contaminants, so we need to understand how water is moving through these agricultural landscapes to determine where excess nutrients are entering waterways and quantify their concentration," she says. "Knowing this can help identify where to focus management strategies for problematic algae blooms."
This year's rain has made algae blooms more sporadic, whereas the summer of 2022 was hot and dry. This led to one big algae bloom in 2022 that later subsided, he says.
Recent research in southern Ontario shows that large rain and snowmelt events lead to some of the largest nutrient inputs to waterways.
"Climate change is expected to increase the severity and frequency of storms, which will likely enhance the movement of excess nutrients to waterways, and subsequent harmful algae blooms will only continue to increase over time," Biagi says.
When algae die, the bacterial decomposition uses up oxygen from water that fish need to breathe. The decaying algae become slimy and odorous while removing oxygen from the water, ultimately shutting down the ecosystem.
Mangal suggests municipal governments should begin to regulate fertilizer use and continue to explore alternatives to traditional synthetic fertilizers that wash from land to water.
"If we don't begin to regulate fertilizer use and the amount of nutrients going across the terrestrial, aquatic interface, conditions for harmful algae growth will continue," he says.
Mangal has conducted algae research in Hamilton Harbor, Bay of Quinte, Port Colborne and Dryden, Ont., as well as Churchill, Man.
Biagi's research into how human disturbances impact water quality has focused on southern Ontario, Nova Scotia and the Athabasca oil sands region in Alberta.
Last year was a grim season for sea turtles in Queensland's Wide Bay-Burnett region with more than 10 times the usual number of sick and dying animals, including over 100 turtles, pulled from the water.
The Australian Rivers Institute Toxicology Research Group (ARI-TOX) is investigating the potential role that chemical pollution had on the elevated green turtle strandings on the Fraser Coast following the major flooding events in early 2022.
"At this stage, we don't know if these strandings were related to disease, parasites, changes to quantity and quality of food sources, chemical pollutants, or a combination of multiple factors," said ARI-TOX marine ecologist and eco-toxicologist Dr. Jason van de Merwe.
"During large flooding events, chemical pollutants, such as pesticides and industrial chemicals, are often washed into coastal areas, where they can then accumulate in the resident sea turtles.
"Many of these chemicals have known effects on humans and other animals, so we are looking into if and how they're contributing to the observed elevated strandings of green turtles."
Researchers at ARI-TOX collaborated with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science to capture green turtles foraging in the waters of Hervey Bay adjacent to pollution sources in river mouths and urban outflows, while also assessing turtles in the eastern bay areas, further away from potential pollution sources.
The general health and demographics of the green turtle population were recorded during these sampling events, including size and age, indicators of health and body condition, and breeding status.
Blood samples were also collected from each turtle for investigations into health and toxicology, the latter to be performed by ARI-TOX researchers.
"Full credit must be given to the Australian Government and the Queensland Department of Environment and Science for initiating such a swift and comprehensive investigation into the potential impacts of the 2022 floods on the health of marine wildlife," Dr. van de Merwe said.
"They did a great job in assembling a multi-disciplinary team of sea turtle experts, wildlife veterinarians, pathologists and toxicologists. As toxicologists, our role in this project is to determine the amount and types of metals and organic contaminants found in these sea turtles, and investigate whether there are any links to the health and demographic data collected.
"We measure metals using well established analytical techniques, however, due to the vast array of organic pollutants that are found in the marine environment, we measure the toxicity of the specific mixture of organic contaminants extracted from each individual turtle sampled, using a cell-based test.
"To test the combination of contaminants that the turtles accumulate, we concentrate the mixture of organic contaminants found in a sea turtle blood sample, perform a series of dilutions of this concentrate, and, using a novel sea turtle specific cell-based toxicity assay, expose sea turtle cell cultures from ARITOX's Marine Wildlife Cell Bank to this concentration gradient.
"These assays will allow us to understand if the level of pollutants currently found inside the turtles is toxic to their cells, and if not, how much it has to increase to cause a toxic response."
In a separate component of the project investigating the impacts of flooding on marine wildlife, the ARI-TOX team are also collaborating with Sea World and other wildlife hospitals to measure the chemical contamination of sea turtles, dolphins and dugongs that are currently being stranded in South East Queensland.
"The goal of this aspect of research is to again determine what the potential role of chemical pollution is in causing the elevated levels of marine wildlife strandings we have been seeing in the region in recent years," Dr. van de Merwe said.
