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The following scientific events occurred or are scheduled to occur in 2024.
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The Antarctic ice sheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, with an area of 14 million square kilometres and an average thickness of over 2 kilometres (1.2 mi). It is the largest of Earth's two current ice sheets, containing 26.5 million cubic kilometres of ice, which is equivalent to 61% of all fresh water on Earth. Its surface is nearly continuous, and the only ice-free areas on the continent are the dry valleys, nunataks of the Antarctic mountain ranges, and sparse coastal bedrock. However, it is often subdivided into East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS), West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), and Antarctic Peninsula (AP), due to the large differences in topography, ice flow, and glacier mass balance between the three regions.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a component of Earth's ocean circulation system and plays an important role in the climate system. The AMOC includes Atlantic currents at the surface and at great depths that are driven by changes in weather, temperature and salinity. Those currents comprise half of the global thermohaline circulation that includes the flow of major ocean currents, the other half being the Southern Ocean overturning circulation.
The historical application of biotechnology throughout time is provided below in chronological order.
Ocean heat content (OHC) or ocean heat uptake (OHU) is the energy absorbed and stored by oceans. To calculate the ocean heat content, it is necessary to measure ocean temperature at many different locations and depths. Integrating the areal density of a change in enthalpic energy over an ocean basin or entire ocean gives the total ocean heat uptake. Between 1971 and 2018, the rise in ocean heat content accounted for over 90% of Earth's excess energy from global heating. The main driver of this increase was caused by humans via their rising greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, about one third of the added energy had propagated to depths below 700 meters.
Planetary oceanography, also called astro-oceanography or exo-oceanography, is the study of oceans on planets and moons other than Earth. Unlike other planetary sciences like astrobiology, astrochemistry, and planetary geology, it only began after the discovery of underground oceans in Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa. This field remains speculative until further missions reach the oceans beneath the rock or ice layer of the moons. There are many theories about oceans or even ocean worlds of celestial bodies in the Solar System, from oceans made of diamond in Neptune to a gigantic ocean of liquid hydrogen that may exist underneath Jupiter's surface.
Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities occurs everywhere on Earth, and while Antarctica is less vulnerable to it than any other continent, climate change in Antarctica has already been observed. There has been an average temperature increase of >0.05 °C/decade since 1957 across the continent, although it had been uneven. While West Antarctica warmed by over 0.1 °C/decade from the 1950s to the 2000s and the exposed Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 3 °C (5.4 °F) since the mid-20th century, the colder and more stable East Antarctica had been experiencing cooling until the 2000s. Around Antarctica, the Southern Ocean has absorbed more heat than any other ocean, with particularly strong warming at depths below 2,000 m (6,600 ft) and around the West Antarctic, which has warmed by 1 °C (1.8 °F) since 1955.
The earliest known life forms on Earth may be as old as 4.1 billion years old according to biologically fractionated graphite inside a single zircon grain in the Jack Hills range of Australia. The earliest evidence of life found in a stratigraphic unit, not just a single mineral grain, is the 3.7 Ga metasedimentary rocks containing graphite from the Isua Supracrustal Belt in Greenland. The earliest direct known life on land may be stromatolites which have been found in 3.480-billion-year-old geyserite uncovered in the Dresser Formation of the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. Various microfossils of microorganisms have been found in 3.4 Ga rocks, including 3.465-billion-year-old Apex chert rocks from the same Australian craton region, and in 3.42 Ga hydrothermal vent precipitates from Barberton, South Africa. Much later in the geologic record, likely starting in 1.73 Ga, preserved molecular compounds of biologic origin are indicative of aerobic life. Therefore, the earliest time for the origin of life on Earth is at least 3.5 billion years ago, possibly as early as 4.1 billion years ago — not long after the oceans formed 4.5 billion years ago and after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago.
A number of significant scientific events occurred in 2018.
Pseudo-panspermia is a well-supported hypothesis for a stage in the origin of life. The theory first asserts that many of the small organic molecules used for life originated in space. It continues that these organic molecules were distributed to planetary surfaces, where life then emerged on Earth and perhaps on other planets. Pseudo-panspermia differs from the fringe theory of panspermia, which asserts that life arrived on Earth from distant planets.
This is a list of several significant scientific events that occurred or were scheduled to occur in 2021.
This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing from 2020 to the present. For narratives explaining the overall developments, see the history of computing.
Dimorphos is a natural satellite or moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, with which it forms a binary system. The moon was discovered on 20 November 2003 by Petr Pravec in collaboration with other astronomers worldwide. Dimorphos has a diameter of 177 meters (581 ft) across its longest extent and it was the target of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a NASA space mission that deliberately collided a spacecraft with the moon on 26 September 2022 to alter its orbit around Didymos. Before the impact by DART, Dimorphos had a shape of an oblate spheroid with a surface covered in boulders but virtually no craters. The moon is thought to have formed when Didymos shed its mass due to its rapid rotation, which formed an orbiting ring of debris that conglomerated into a low-density rubble pile that became Dimorphos today.
This article lists a number of significant events in science that have occurred in the first quarter of 2021.
This timeline lists notable events in the history of research into senescence or biological aging, including the research and development of life extension methods, brain aging delay methods and rejuvenation.
Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020– documents increases in renewable energy, solar energy, and nuclear energy, particularly for ways that are sustainable within the Solar System.
This is an article of notable issues relating to the terrestrial environment of Earth in 2022. They relate to environmental events such as natural disasters, environmental sciences such as ecology and geoscience with a known relevance to contemporary influence of humanity on Earth, environmental law, conservation, environmentalism with major worldwide impact and environmental issues.
The following scientific events occurred in 2023.
This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2023.
This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2024.
Conservation Genomics is the use of genomic study to aide in the preservation and viability of different and diverse organisms and populations. Genomics can be utilized in order to classify or argue diversity, hybridization, and history as well as identity different and similar species. Genomics can evaluate how these measures relate to effective population size as well as other ideas under the umbrella of conservation genetics, and overall biological conservation. Genomic analysis can evaluate the extent to which alleles at certain loci interact with one and other to display nuanced ways which the genome may be intertwined.
And it won't necessarily be of help to the rest of Latin America: Butantan will only make the vaccine for Brazil. The multinational drug company Merck & Co., which also licensed the NIH technology, is developing a related vaccine […] the data released so far shows it tested against only the two types that were circulating during the first part of the trial; more results are expected in June
The researchers found these super-emitting points can persist for months or even years, and account for almost 90 percent of all measured methane from the landfills. Tackling these hotspots could be a huge stride toward lowering emission rates, but blindspots in current monitoring protocols mean they often evade detection.