Studying the water cycle on Mars is essential for assessing its potential habitability, and a new study reveals that significant quantities are present as transient frost on mountain peaks.
Frost can wreak havoc on a heat pump system and eliminating this risk is a key step in their widespread adoption here in Canada.
(Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen via AP)
Heat pumps are essential for the large-scale adoption of more carbon friendly heating systems and recent research suggests a way forward for reducing one of the technology’s biggest hurdles — frost.
Changes in climate affect the timings of various points in the life cycle of plants, including when flowers bloom in spring and when leaves wither in autumn.
(Shutterstock)
Roberto Silvestro, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) and Sergio Rossi, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
Climate change is modifying the timing of recurrent life-cycle events with critical consequences on ecological and economic levels.
As water vapour (gas) cools, it slows down. The small parts, the molecules, start to gather together, especially on cold things like a cool leaf.
Flickr/Richard Nix
We already know that climate change makes heatwaves hotter and longer. But a new series of research papers asks whether there is also a climate fingerprint on frosty spells and bouts of wet weather.
Children from a village in Papua New Guinea’s Western Highlands Province stand in one of countless sweet potato gardens destroyed by frost across the country, August 2015.
Kud Sitango
Papua New Guinea is now facing a drought and frosts that look set to be worse than 1997, when hundreds of people died. So how can memories of 1997 save lives over the next few months?