TheConversation

Wildfire smoke from Canada’s extreme fire season has left a lot of people thinking about air quality and wondering what to expect in the days ahead. All air contains gaseous compounds and small particles. But as air quality gets worse, these gases and particles can trigger asthma and exacerbate heart and respiratory problems as they enter the nose, throat and lungs and even circulate in the bloodstream. When wildfire smoke turned New York City’s skies orange in early June 2023, emergency room visits for asthma doubled. In most cities, it’s easy to find a daily air quality index score that tells you when the air is considered unhealthy or even hazardous. However, predicting air quality in the days ahead isn’t so simple. I work on air quality forecasting as a professor of civil and environmental engineering. Artificial intelligence has improved these forecasts, but research shows it’s much more useful when paired with traditional techniques. HereR...

Armed with scrub brushes, young scuba divers took to the waters of Florida’s Alligator Reef in late July to try to help corals struggling to survive 2023’s extraordinary marine heat wave. They carefully scraped away harmful algae and predators impinging on staghorn fragments, under the supervision and training of interns from Islamorada Conservation and Restoration Education, or I.CARE. Normally, I.CARE’s volunteer divers would be transplanting corals to waters off the Florida Keys this time of year, as part of a national effort to restore the Florida Reef. But this year, everything is going in reverse. As water temperatures spiked in the Florida Keys, scientists from universities, coral reef restoration groups and government agencies launched a heroic effort to save the corals. Divers have been in the water every day, collecting thousands of corals from ocean nurseries along the Florida Keys reef tract and moving them to cooler water and into giant tanks on la...

Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” has focused new attention on the legacies of the Manhattan Project – the World War II program to develop nuclear weapons. As the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, approach, it’s a timely moment to look further at dilemmas wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project spawned a trinity of interconnected legacies. It initiated a global arms race that threatens the survival of humanity and the planet as we know it. It also led to widespread public health and environmental damage from nuclear weapons production and testing. And it generated a culture of governmental secrecy with troubling political consequences. As a researcher examining communication in science, technology, energy and environmental contexts, I’ve studied these legacies of nuclear weapons production. From 2000 to 2005, I also served on a citizen advisory board that provides...

Picture two homes on the same street: one constructed in the 1950s and the other in the 1990s. There are no trees or other shade. The air conditioning units are identical, recently replaced, and operating perfectly. Identical thermostats are set at 82 degrees Fahrenheit (27.8 Celsius). When it’s 110 F (43.3 C) outside, the 1950s house will likely feel at least 10 F (5.6 C) warmer inside, even with the same air temperature. Why? The answer has to do with radiant heat. Radiant heat is what keeps you toasty warm at a campfire on a cold winter night. The fire doesn’t warm the air much; rather, like the Sun, most of the fire’s heat moves through invisible waves directly from the campfire to your body. In the radiant heat of the Arizona sun, the surface temperature of the uninsulated post-and-beam ceilings in my house, one of 41,000 built in Tucson during the post-World War II era, can reach over 100 F (37.8 C). The single-glazed steel windows register 122 F (50 C...

Humans have physically reconfigured half of the world’s land to grow just eight staple crops: maize (corn), soy, wheat, rice, cassava, sorghum, sweet potato and potato. They account for the vast majority of calories that people around the world consume. As global population rises, there’s pressure to expand production even further. Many experts argue that further expanding modern industrialized agriculture – which relies heavily on synthetic fertilizer, chemical pesticides and high-yield seeds – isn’t the right way to feed a growing world population. In their view, this approach isn’t sustainable ecologically or economically, and farmers and scientists alike feel trapped within this system. Corn’s evolution into a global commodity shows how industrialized agriculture has transformed farming. How can societies develop a food system that meets their needs and is also more healthy and diverse? It has p...