Agriculture study delivers unexpected results

A research study at the University of Bonn analyzes the effect of mixed cover crops on root traits

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BONN

 

IMAGE: SAMPLES THE SIZE OF A BRICK WERE TAKEN FROM THE SOIL AT DIFFERENT DEPTHS AND THE ROOTS WERE THEN ISOLATED, SCANNED AND MEASURED. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO: JOHANNES SIEBIGTEROTH/UNIVERSITY OF BONN

Farmers usually plant so-called cover crops after harvesting their main crop in the Fall. This prevents erosion of the soil and nutrient leaching. The roots of these crops also stabilize the structure of the soil. It had been assumed up to now that a mixture of different cover crops would result in particularly intensive rooting. However, a recent study carried out by the University of Bonn, University of Kassel and University of Göttingen found only limited evidence that this is the case. Instead, mixed cover crops grow thinner roots than when just one single type of cover crop is planted. This result was unexpected. It documents how little is currently understood about the interactions between plant roots. The study was published in the magazine Plant and Soil.

In agriculture, crops are usually differentiated into main crops and cover crops. The first category includes crops with which farms mainly earn their money such as cereals, potato or maize. Once these crops have been harvested, it is time for the cover crops: They are sown to maintain or improve the quality of the soil. Cover crops suppress weeds, prevent nitrate leaching and reduce erosion by rain and wind. “These crops are not usually harvested but simply die away during the first frosty days,” explains Roman Kemper, who received his doctorate in the research group headed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Döring at the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn. “Nevertheless, they are hugely important for economic farming.”

Comparing mixed cover crops with pure stands

Many of these positive effects are hugely dependent on how well the roots of the cover crops penetrate the soil. “It had been widely assumed up to now that mixed cover crops penetrate the soil more intensively than pure stands of cover crops comprising one single plant species. The reasoning behind this idea is that if roots from several species sown at the same time are competing, the result will be so-called niche differentiation. This means the roots of some cover crops will mainly penetrate upper layers of soil, while others will seek out lower layers of soil.

“Overall, this should mean that a mixture of crops will result in greater rooting of the entire soil profile,” says Kemper. “In agroforestry systems in which trees are also planted next to typical agricultural crops, this effect is actually observed. However, we were not able to find any evidence for this effect in the cover crops in our fields.”

The researchers tested cover crops of oil radish, winter rye and crimson clover in their study. The plants were either sown as single or mixed cover crops. The scientists then investigated how the roots had penetrated the soil at different depths in late Fall.

“We were surprised by the results,” emphasizes Kemper: “Particularly positive effects were observed in the fields where oil radish and winter rye had been sown on their own. The roots of the winter rye favored the upper layers, while the roots of the oil radish penetrated significantly deeper.” But what happened when oil radish was planted together with winter rye? Surprisingly, the root mass did not increase in all of the soil layers taken together as a result. The roots of the deeper rooting oil radish did penetrate more intensively into lower levels of the soil in the mixed crop than was the case with pure stands. However, the roots of the mixed cover crops were significantly thinner and thus the root mass did not increase overall.

Cleaning and closely examining every root

The results document how little is currently known about the root growth of crop mixtures. This may also be due to the fact that their research involved extremely painstaking work. Hundreds of soil samples – each as big as a brick – had to be taken for the study. The samples were washed, sieved and then cleaned using a pair of tweezers to remove even the tiniest pieces of dirt or contamination from the roots that were sometimes just a few tenths of a millimeter thick. Every root was then scanned, dried and weighed.

However, this painstaking work was worth the effort. “There has so far only been rudimentary research carried out into the rooting performance of our arable crops,” says Kemper. “This means that there is still a lot of new things to discover.”

Participating institutes and funding:

Alongside the University of Bonn, the other participants in the project were the University of Kassel and the University of Göttingen. The research was funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL).

Publication: Roman Kemper, Thomas F. Döring, Nicole Legner, Catharina Meinen and Miriam Athmann: Oil radish, winter rye and crimson clover: root and shoot performance in cover crop mixtures; Plant and Soil; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06240-y

JOURNAL

Plant and Soil

DOI

10.1007/s11104-023-06240-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Oil radish, winter rye and crimson clover: root and shoot performance in cover crop mixtures

 

Arm and head injuries most common in wartime civilians

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

 

IMAGE: YOHAN ROBINSON, UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG, CENTER FOR DISASTER MEDICINE. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY MARGARETA G. KUBISTA

Arm and head injuries are the most common in wartime civilians, both children and adults. This is according to a scientific report from the newly established Center for Disaster Medicine at the University of Gothenburg.

The report, titled “Civilt skadepanorama i krig” (Civilian Injury Landscape in War) was commissioned by the National Board of Health and Welfare and is in Swedish with an English summary. The aim behind it has been to create a better knowledge base for work on contingency planning in Swedish healthcare and for the rebuilding of civil defense in Sweden.

The researchers conducted a systematic literature review, describing civilian injury patterns in modern warfare from 1973 to 2023. From all the material collected, 62 scientific articles and reports were ultimately included in the review.

The results show that arm injuries were the most common among civilians in war, affecting around one in three injured people (32%). This was followed by head injuries (26%), injuries to the lower extremities, i.e. the legs (18%), chest injuries (18%), burns (16%), abdominal and pelvic injuries (10%) and spinal injuries (4%).

Blast waves and unexploded ammunition

The high number of head injuries can be explained by blast waves from bombs that cause civilians to be thrown against walls or have debris propelled at them. Arm and finger injuries in children often involve playing with unexploded ammunition.

Abdominal, chest and leg injuries, for example from mine blasts, are often fatal for civilians without body armor. It should also be noted that if they are injured and die, and therefore do not enter the healthcare system, the injuries are not recorded.

The task included studying any differences between adults and children. The distribution of injuries in children was found to be about the same as in adults. Every fourth person in the sample was a child under the age of 17.

Yohan Robinson, associate professor and director of the Center for Disaster Medicine at the University of Gothenburg, is an orthopedic and trauma surgeon with experience as an officer and war surgeon in Afghanistan and Mali.

Schematic distribution of physical injuries in adults and children.

CREDIT

Illustration by the University of Gothenburg

Important for civil and military healthcare

“Injury pattern data is important for contingency planning for both civilian and military medical services in the total defense system. We were actually surprised that the injury pattern has remained so constant over the last 50 years, despite different conflicts, geographical spread, the different nature of the wars and the many new weapon systems that have emerged,” he states.

The report is based on data from armed conflicts, although chemical, biological and nuclear weapons have been excluded from the review. Difficulties encountered in the work have included the variation in how injuries are reported, and finding reliable data from ongoing conflicts in places like Niger, Sudan and Ukraine.

“One should be cautious about generalizing the injury pattern to a Swedish context, not least because there are limitations in the material, such as reporting bias, observation of the injury pattern for survivors only, and conflicts of interest in the results,” says Yohan Robinson.

The authors of the report are all affiliated with the Center for Disaster Medicine at the University of Gothenburg. Yohan Robinson is joined by Karl Chevalley and Göran Sandström, both lieutenant colonels in the Armed Forces and senior doctors in anesthesia and intensive care.

Karl Chevalley is active in air ambulance operations in Region Västra Götaland, as well as being a lieutenant colonel and staff physician in the Army Staff. Göran Sandström, MD, is a lieutenant colonel and deputy director of Sweden’s Center for Defense Medicine.

Report in Swedish, including summary in English: Civilt skadepanorama i krig – En litteraturanalys över ett halvt sekel av krig, https://hdl.handle.net/2077/78319

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

 

University of Tartu researcher receives prestigious ERC Starting Grant to study the arms race between bacteria and viruses

Grant and Award Announcement

ESTONIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

 

IMAGE: HEDVIG TAMMAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN GENETICS OF UNIVERSITY OF TARTU IN HER LABORATORY view more 

CREDIT: BY ANDRES AINELO

The two-way defence mechanisms of bacteria and phages, viruses of the bacteria, can offer a solution to antibiotic resistance problems. Hedvig Tamman, Associate Professor of Genetics at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, received the Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to study the microbial arms race. Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem in the treatment of infectious diseases caused by bacteria. Bacteria-attacking viruses can offer new solutions, for example, for developing antibiotics and their additives. The prospect of using phages in the fight against pathogenic bacteria has long been recognised, but their very high specificity and unpredictable reproduction have limited their wider use in medicine. Tamman’s study bridges several gaps in the research on bacteria, phages and their interaction. “As bacteria and phages have co-evolved since the beginning of time, there is a kind of arms race between them – phages develop a mechanism to overcome all the bacterial defence systems,” said Tamman. On the one hand, the researcher studies how bacteria defend themselves against phages. For example, bacteria have defence mechanisms against phages and other stressors, such as the toxin-antitoxin system in chromosomes and the stringent response – the latter puts the bacterium, when stressed, into a kind of hibernation. This helps it survive the antibiotic attack and supports the development and spread of resistance. On the other hand, Tamman hopes to discover what helps the phages paralyse the bacterial stringent response. “Although the bacterium Pseudomonas putida that I study is not medically important, it is related to human and plant pathogens. Knowing how phages fight this bacterium gives us ideas that could help us fight bacterial diseases in the future,” Tamman said. The ERC Starting Grant for early-stage researchers is €1.5 million over five years. The project “Deciphering stringent response proteins and toxin-antitoxin systems in the arms race between bacteria and phages” (abbreviation PhaBacArms) starts at the beginning of 2024 and runs until the end of 2028. Hedvig Tamman defended her PhD in genetics at the University of Tartu in 2016. Her doctoral thesis dealt with the functionality of chromosomal toxin-antitoxin systems of the bacterium Pseudomonas putida. From 2016 to 2021, Tamman was a postdoctoral researcher at the Free University of Brussels, where she worked on determining bacterial stress responses and the structure of proteins involved in these responses. LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BIOPHAGE

 

Rubber plumbing seals can leak additives into drinking water, study says

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

As drinking water flows through pipes and into a glass, it runs against the rubber seals inside some plumbing devices. These parts contain additives that contribute to their flexibility and durability, but these potentially harmful compounds can leak into drinking water, according to a small-scale study in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters. The authors report that the released compounds, which are typically linked to tire pollution, also transformed into other unwanted byproducts.

To enhance rubber’s strength and durability, manufacturers typically mix in additives. Scientists have shown that tire dust can transport these substances, such as 1,3 diphenylguanidine (DPG) and N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N'-phenyl-1,4-benzenediamine (6PPD), into waterways. DPG and 6PPD have also been detected in drinking water samples, though it’s unclear how the compounds got there. In previous research, Shane Snyder and Mauricius Marques dos Santos found that these rubber additives can react with disinfectants in simulated drinking water. Their lab tests generated a variety of chlorinated compounds, some of which could damage DNA. Now, the team wanted to assess whether real-world rubber plumbing fixtures can release DPG and 6PPD and form chlorinated byproducts in drinking water samples.

In this pilot study, the team collected tap water from 20 buildings and detected polymer additives at parts per trillion levels in every sample. The researchers explain that these compounds are not currently regulated, but the measured levels are potentially concerning, based on their previous study’s results from human cell bioassays. And the samples from faucets with aerators contained the highest total amounts. All of the samples contained DPG and one of its chlorinated byproducts, whereas 6PPD and two other chlorine-containing compounds were each found in fewer than five samples. This is the first report of chlorinated DPG byproducts in drinking water, according to the researchers.

To see if these compounds could have come from plumbing fixtures, the team tested rubber O-rings and gaskets from seven commercial devices, including faucet aerators and connection seals. In the experiment, the rings sat in water with or without chlorinated disinfectants for up to two weeks. Most of the seals, except for the silicone-based ones, released DPG and 6PPD additives. Additionally, plumbing pieces sitting in disinfectant-treated water generated chlorinated forms of DPG in amounts that were consistent with those observed in the drinking water samples. Because some of the rubber plumbing seals released DPG and 6PPD, the researchers say that drinking water, as well as tire pollution, could be a route of human exposure to these compounds.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Merlion programme; the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs; the Nanyang Technological University; the National Research Foundation of Singapore; and the Public Utilities Board, Singapore’s National Water Agency.

The paper’s abstract will be available on Sept. 6 at 8 a.m. Eastern time here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00446

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

DOI

10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00446 

ARTICLE TITLE

Occurrence of Polymer Additives 1,3-Diphenylguanidine (DPG), N‑(1,3-Dimethylbutyl)‑N'‑phenyl-1,4-benzenediamine (6PPD), and Chlorinated Byproducts in Drinking Water: Contribution from Plumbing Polymer Materials

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Sep-2023

Disclaimer: AAAS an

 

Human-AI collaboration improves source search outcomes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY PRESS

 

IMAGE: THIS DIAGRAM SHOWS THE DECISION PROCESS FOR WHEN AN AI-BASED ROBOT ENCOUNTERS A PROBLEM DURING A SOURCE SEARCH. THE ROBOT WILL DETERMINE IF THE PROBLEM COULD BE SOLVED WITH HUMAN ASSISTANCE OR NOT. IF THE PROBLEM CANNOT BE SOLVED WITH HUMAN ASSISTANCE, FOR EXAMPLE, IF THE SEARCH AREA IS SIMPLY TOO LARGE, THEN THE SEARCH WILL END. HOWEVER, IF IT CAN BE SOLVED BY HUMAN ASSISTANCE, THE HUMAN PARTICIPANTS WILL RECEIVE AN EXPLANATION OF THE PROBLEM AND SUGGESTIONS FOR HOW TO SOLVE IT. view more 

CREDIT: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL COMPUTING, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY PRESS

When artificial intelligence robots that have been designed to use algorithms to complete source search tasks, such as search and rescue operations during a fire, encounter a disturbance, they are often unable to complete their task. Proposed solutions have ranged from trying to improve algorithms to introducing additional robots, but these AI-driven robots still encounter fatal problems.

Researchers have proposed a solution: a human-AI collaboration that takes advantages of the unique skills of the human brain to overcome challenges.

The paper was published in the Journal of Social Computing in June, 2023.

“It is time to bring humans back,” said Yong Zhao, a researcher from Changsha, China. “AI-driven robots are often used in situations when physical search would be too dangerous or physically impossible for people, such as locating the origin of a fire or identifying the source of toxic gas. However, AI robots can encounter critical problems that cannot be resolved autonomously, such as getting stuck or misidentifying the source. These are problems that are easily tackled by humans using their expertise, experience, and even instincts. A crowd-powered system offers a novel solution.”

To prove the feasibility of their human-AI collaboration strategy, researchers first identified the different types of hazards the robots could encounter. These hazards were then sorted into whether or not a human observer could help AI solve the problem. If the problem cannot be solved with human assistance, for example, if the search area is too large, then the search is stopped. However, if the problem could be solved with human assistance, the AI develops an explanation of the problem, and it is sent for crowdsourcing. 

“Involving humans in the automated problem-solving process enhances the efficacy and efficiency of the algorithm. In scenarios where the robot faces challenges due to dynamic, deteriorated, or unfamiliar environments, temporary human intervention can be employed without prior knowledge of the surroundings to address these issues. Once resolved, AI seamlessly resumes control over the robot to continue its search,” said Sihang Qiu.

After identifying the different types of hazards and whether or not humans could assist in source search scenarios, researchers developed a user study. The user study tested two different control modes of the AI robot—Full Control and Aided Control. In Full Control, the human collaborator takes over the search process. In Aided Control, the problem-solving decision tree decides if the human-AI collaboration would be beneficial.

During Aided Control, when they received information from the algorithm about the problem and did not give over complete control, participants felt like they had less cognitive workload and could address the problem. However, non-experts had a harder time understanding the AI-driven robot’s explanations of the problem, leading the researchers to propose personalized interactions based on the experience of the human in the collaboration, including plain language explanations.

 

Looking ahead, researchers will try to find ways to include additional personalization, based on the human participants’ background, education level, and personality. “This study paves the way for our future exploration into harnessing crowd-powered systems to facilitate effective collaboration between humans and AI. Our aim is to substantiate the manifold advantages of such collaboration in diverse application scenarios, including but not limited to natural language processing and image analysis,” said Qiu.

Other contributors include Zhengqiu Zhu and Bin Chen from Changsha, China.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province funded this research.

 

##

About Journal of Social Computing

Journal of Social Computing (JSC) is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal which aims to publish high-quality, original research that pushes the boundaries of thinking, findings, and designs at the dynamic interface of social interaction and computation. This will include research in （1）computational social science—the use of computation to learn from the explosion of social data becoming available today; (2) complex social systems or the analysis of how dynamic, evolving social collectives constitute emergent computers to solve their own problems; and (3) human computer interaction whereby machines and persons recursively combine to generate unique knowledge and collective intelligence, or the intersection of these areas. The editorial board welcomes research from fields ranging across the social sciences, computer and information sciences, physics and ecology, communications and linguistics, and, indeed, any field or approach that can challenge and advance our understanding of the interface and integration of computation and social life. We seek to take risks, avoid boredom and court failure on the path to transformative new paradigms, insights, and possibilities.  The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms, methodologies and applications.

 

About SciOpen

SciOpen is a professional open access resource for discovery of scientific and technical content published by the Tsinghua University Press and its publishing partners, providing the scholarly publishing community with innovative technology and market-leading capabilities. SciOpen provides end-to-end services across manuscript submission, peer review, content hosting, analytics, and identity management and expert advice to ensure each journal’s development by offering a range of options across all functions as Journal Layout, Production Services, Editorial Services, Marketing and Promotions, Online Functionality, etc. By digitalizing the publishing process, SciOpen widens the reach, deepens the impact, and accelerates the exchange of ideas.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Social Computing

DOI

10.23919/JSC.2023.0002 

ARTICLE TITLE

Leveraging Human-AI Collaboration in Crowd-Powered Source Search: A Preliminary Study

 

International report confirms record-high greenhouse gases, global sea levels in 2022

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

 

IMAGE: WORLD MAP SHOWING LOCATIONS OF SIGNIFICANT CLIMATE ANOMALIES AND EVENTS IN 2022. view more 

CREDIT: NOAA

Greenhouse gas concentrations, global sea level and ocean heat content reached record highs in 2022, according to the 33rd annual State of the Climate report.

The international annual review of the world’s climate, led by scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), is based on contributions from more than 570 scientists in over 60 countries. It provides the most comprehensive update on Earth’s climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water ice and in space.

“This report is a truly international effort to more fully understand climate conditions around the globe and our capacity to observe them,” said NCEI Director Derek Arndt. “It is like an annual physical of the Earth system, and it serves present and future generations by documenting and sharing data that indicate increasingly extreme and changing conditions in our warming world.”

“People are causing the largest known change in global climate since our transition to agriculture thousands of years ago,” said Paul Higgins, associate executive director of the American Meteorological Society. “The State of the Climate in 2022 report—an ongoing collaboration between NOAA and AMS—helps us understand the climate system, the impact people are having on climate, and the potential consequences. The report can help inform the decisions needed to enable humanity and all life to thrive for generations to come.”

Notable findings from the international report include:

• Earth’s greenhouse gas concentrations were the highest on record. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide⁠—Earth’s major atmospheric greenhouse gases⁠—once again reached record high concentrations in 2022. The global annual average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was 417.1 parts per million (ppm). This was 50% greater than the pre-industrial level, 2.4 ppm greater than the 2021 amount, and the highest measured amount in the modern observational records as well as in paleoclimatic records dating back as far as 800,000 years. The annual atmospheric methane concentration also reached a record high, which was a 165% increase compared to its pre-industrial level and an increase of about 14 parts per billion (ppb) from 2021. The annual increase of 1.3 ppb for nitrous oxide in 2022, which was similar to the high growth rates in 2020 and 2021, was higher than the average increase during 2010–19 (1.0 ± 0.2 ppb), and suggests increased nitrous oxide emissions in recent years.
• Warming trends continued across the globe. A range of scientific analyses indicate that the annual global surface temperature was 0.45 to 0.54 of a degree F (0.25 to 0.30 of a degree C) above the 1991–2020 average. This places 2022 among the six warmest years since records began in the mid to late 1800s. Even though the year ranked among the six warmest years on record, the presence of La Nina in the Pacific Ocean had a cooling effect on the 2022 global temperatures in comparison to years characterized by El Nino or neutral El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions. Nonetheless, 2022 was the warmest La Nina year on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2021. With the re-emergence of El Nino in 2023, globally-averaged temperatures this year are expected to exceed those observed in 2022.All six major global temperature datasets used for analysis in the report agree that the last eight years (2015–22) were the eighth warmest on record. The annual global mean surface temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.14 to 0.16 of a degree F (0.08 to 0.09 of a degree C) per decade since 1880, and at a rate more than twice as high since 1981.
• Ocean heat and global sea level were the highest on record. Over the past half-century, the oceans have stored more than 90% of the excess energy trapped in Earth’s system by greenhouse gases and other factors. The global ocean heat content, measured from the ocean’s surface to a depth of 2,000 meters (approximately 6,561 ft), continued to increase and reached new record highs in 2022. Global mean sea level was record high for the 11th-consecutive year, reaching about 101.2 mm (4.0 inches) above the 1993 average when satellite altimetry measurements began.
• La Nina conditions moderated sea surface temperatures. La Nina conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that began in mid-2020, with a short break in 2021, continued through all of 2022. The three consecutive years of La Nina conditions—an unusual “triple-dip”—had widespread effects on the ocean and climate in 2022. The mean annual global sea-surface temperature in 2022 equaled 2018 as sixth highest on record, but was lower than both 2019 and 2020 due in part to the long-lasting La Nina. Approximately 58% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave in 2022, which is defined as sea-surface temperatures in the warmest 10% of all recorded data in a particular location for at least five days.
• Heatwaves shattered temperature records across the planet. In July, a 14-day heatwave swept through western Europe. A weather station in England recorded a temperature of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C) for the first time ever, over 100 stations in France broke all-time temperature records, and stations in at least six other European countries set all-time heat records. The extreme high summer temperatures over Europe resulted in unprecedented melting of glaciers in the Alps, with over 6% of their volume—a record loss—lost in Switzerland in 2022 alone. Record-breaking summer heat in central and eastern Asia, particularly in the Yangtze River basin, led to a devastating drought that affected more than 38 million people and caused a direct economic loss of $4.75 billion U.S. dollars.
• The Arctic was warm and wet. The Arctic had its fifth-warmest year in the 123-year record. 2022 marked the ninth-consecutive year that Arctic temperature anomalies were higher than the global mean anomalies, providing more evidence of the process known as Arctic amplification in which physical processes cause the Arctic to warm more quickly than the rest of the planet. The seasonal Arctic minimum sea-ice extent, typically reached in September, was the 11th-smallest in the 43-year record. The amount of multiyear ice—ice that survives at least one summer melt season—remaining in the Arctic continued to decline. Since 2012, the Arctic has been nearly devoid of ice that is more than four years old. Annual average Arctic precipitation for 2022 was the third-highest total since 1950, and three seasons (winter, summer and autumn) ranked among the 10 wettest for their respective season. 
• Although tropical cyclone activity was near average, storms brought devastation to many areas across the globe. There were 85 named tropical storms during the Northern and Southern Hemisphere storm seasons last year, which was near the 1991–2020 average of 87. Three tropical cyclones reached Category 5 intensity on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which was the fewest Category 5 storms globally since 2017. The accumulated cyclone energy for the globe was the lowest since reliable records began in 1981. Despite this, several storms caused massive damage. In the North Atlantic, Hurricane Fiona became the most intense and most destructive tropical or post-tropical cyclone in Atlantic Canada’s history. Hurricane Ian, a major hurricane, killed more than 100 people and became the third costliest disaster in the United States, with damage estimated at $113 billion U.S. dollars. In the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Batsirai dropped 2,044 mm of rain at Commerson Crater in Réunion. The storm also led to 121 fatalities in Madagascar.

The State of the Climate report is a peer-reviewed series published annually as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The journal makes the full report openly available online. NCEI’s high-level overview report is also available online.

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JOURNAL

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

DOI

10.1175/2023BAMSStateoftheClimate.1 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

State of the Climate in 2022

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Sep-2023

When the ocean becomes a source of carbon dioxide

GEOMAR researcher Ivy Frenger receives ERC Starting Grant for her project OSTIA

Grant and Award Announcement

HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR OCEAN RESEARCH KIEL (GEOMAR)

The ocean has so far stored large amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by humans, and excess heat that accumulates in the Earth system as a result of these emissions. What will happen to the carbon dioxide and heat if we will not manage to rapidly mitigate emissions and thus will need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Climate researcher Dr Ivy Frenger from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, is trying to answer this question with the help of a complex Earth system model. For her project OSTIA (The Ocean'S role in miTIgating climAte change), she has been awarded one of the prestigious Starting Grants of the European Research Council (ERC), worth 1.5 million euros.

"This is basic research," says Frenger, "we need to understand the processes in order to assess the consequences of our interventions, such as a strong active removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere." Her research question addresses for the first time both carbon dioxide (CO2) and heat, tracking how they behave under such conditions, and which processes in the ocean are the most important, in particular the role of transport and mixing by eddies. "About 40 per cent of fossil fuel emissions and 90 per cent of heat have been absorbed by the ocean. Now we have a political goal to stop emissions or even, if we miss our climate target, to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in the second half of this century. What is the fate of the CO2 and heat that the ocean has absorbed?"

The ocean and the atmosphere are in a constant exchange, and the system is always trying to find a balance: When there is more gas in the atmosphere than in the water, CO2 is absorbed by the ocean, if the atmospheric CO2 content is reduced, and climate subsequently will cool, the ocean will release previously absorbed CO2 and heat. Frenger: "Our emissions are not gone, they are not forgotten, the ocean remembers the anthropogenic disturbance for millennia".

Dr Frenger is interested in when and where the release of CO2 and heat will occur, and what global and regional impacts this will have on the future climate. She is using her knowledge of ocean eddies, which could transport absorbed CO2 and heat from places of absorption to places of release. She will incorporate these phenomena into a complex Earth system model that will allow time travel to track the distribution of absorbed heat and carbon dioxide in the ocean and estimate the impact on our future climate.

"In the model, you can experiment," she says, emphasising one advantage of her approach: "I can see how the system responds, for example, if we overshoot the 1.5-degree warming target. The second big advantage: "You can measure the temperature and CO2 content of the water, but you can't tell what part of it is man-made. That part can be assessed in the Earth System Model because the pre-industrial values are known, and anything above that can be identified as a man-made disturbance."

To process the huge amounts of data that will allow her to track anthropogenic heat and CO2 in the ocean under different climate scenarios, she will use the supercomputer system operated by the North German Supercomputing Alliance (Norddeutscher Verbund für Hoch- und Höchstleistungsrechnen – HLRN) specifically for science and research.

 

Patients with AML who received vitamin C/D supplements had fewer complications, but no overall survival benefit seen

Subgroup analysis finds survival advantage for patients with NPM1 mutation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEMATOLOGY

Patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who received vitamin C and D supplements while undergoing intensive chemotherapy had lower rates of complications, such as infections, bleeding, and inflammation, when compared with similar, previously treated patients who did not receive these supplements. Moreover, while the study showed no difference in survival between the two groups, a subgroup analysis showed that among patients with a genetic mutation known as NPM1 – found in about one in three patients with AML – the risk of death was nearly 50% lower among those who were taking the supplements. The results published today in the journal Blood Advances.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the potential effects of vitamin C and D supplementation during intensive chemotherapy for AML,” said Christian Récher, MD, of the University Cancer Institute of Toulouse in France and the study’s senior author. “We have shown that supplementation is feasible and safe and may help reduce some significant adverse events associated with intensive chemotherapy, which is a clear benefit for patients.”

Dr. Récher and his colleagues began treating all adult patients with AML undergoing intensive chemotherapy with vitamin C and D supplements, based on the findings of several previous studies. One of these studies suggested that higher vitamin D levels prior to a donor stem cell transplant reduced the risk of a post-transplant relapse in patients with AML, while two laboratory studies indicated that vitamin C supplementation could suppress the development of leukemic cells.

In this study, the researchers compared outcomes for 431 patients with AML who received intensive chemotherapy at the University Cancer Institute of Toulouse over a five-year period; 169 patients, treated between 2018 and 2020, received vitamin C and D supplements while 262, treated between 2015 and 2018 (the control group), did not. ADD statement/info on response potentially including reduced side effects.

The median age of patients in the supplementation group was 65 and 52% were women, while in the control group, the median age was 60 and 53% were men. At the time of their AML diagnosis, most patients in both groups had low levels of vitamins C and D. Roughly a quarter of patients in the supplementation group and a third of those in the control group went on to receive donor stem cell transplants. The median follow-up period was 28.7 months for the supplementation group and 58.2 months for the control group.

In the supplementation group, vitamin D levels increased significantly from 18 ng/mL at diagnosis to 39 ng/mL at recovery from intensive chemotherapy. The normal range for vitamin D is between 20 and 50 ng/mL No significant increase was seen in vitamin C levels likely due to a conservative regimen (6 grams per week).

During intensive chemotherapy, patients receiving the supplementation experienced lower rates of moderate to severe bacterial infections (27.2% versus 35.1% in the control), bleeding (1.8% versus 5.7% in the control), and potentially life-threatening inflammation of the immune system (1.8% versus 8.8% in the control). Median overall survival was 34.5 months, median survival without a relapse was 20.6 months, and the cumulative incidence of relapse was 46.4%. No significant differences between the two groups were observed when the researchers analyzed outcomes for all treated patients combined.

However, a subgroup analysis found that patients in the supplementation group with an NPM1 mutation – the most common mutation found in 30% to 35% of patients with AML – had a 48% reduced risk of death compared with patients who did not have the mutation. Further studies are needed to identify the mechanism responsible for this survival difference, Dr. Récher said.

Dr. Récher and his team were especially surprised by the improved survival in patients with an NPM1 mutation who received the supplements but cautioned that this association requires confirmation in a larger, randomized study. 

The study has several limitations. It was a retrospective study conducted at a single institution that compared outcomes for patients treated before and after the institution introduced supplementation for all adult patients undergoing intensive chemotherapy for AML. The study also involved a relatively small number of patients. Additionally, because all patients in the supplementation group received both vitamin C and vitamin D, the researchers could not analyze the independent effect of each vitamin or the value of combining them.

Despite these limitations, Dr. Récher said, “Our results are encouraging and support prospective clinical trials of vitamin C and D administration in AML patients.”

As always, patients should review with their care teams the medications they take, including any over-the-counter medications, vitamin and dietary supplements, and ask before starting specific supplements.

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Blood Advances (www.bloodadvances.org) publishes more peer-reviewed hematology research than any other academic journal worldwide and is an online only, open access journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world’s largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.

Blood Advances® is a registered trademark of the American Society of Hematology.

Contact:

Kira Sampson, American Society of Hematology

ksampson@hematology.org; 202-499-1796

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JOURNAL

Blood Advances