Scientists use light echoes to illuminate black holes

and when tree planting does not work.

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Coffee Table Science
November 10, 2024

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In this newsletter

Microplastics are bad for the weather too

If you have been worried about the presence of microplastics in your food and water, there is some more bad news. Microplastics are in the environment already and are already affecting the weather. 

Clouds are formed when water vapor sticks to tiny specks of dust and turns into liquid water droplets or ice crystals. Now, researchers have found that microplastics can replace dust particles and achieve the same process at temperatures up to 10 degrees Celsius warmer. 

The role of clouds is not just limited to providing rain. Depending on how they are formed, they can either reflect sunlight or absorb it, causing temperatures to drop or rise. How much sunlight a cloud reflects depends on the liquid water-to-ice ratio, and microplastics in the atmosphere determine how the cloud will behave. 

You can find out more in a piece published in The Conversation. 

2024 set to be the year when the 1.5C limit was breached 

Even before the year comes to an end, it is likely that 2024 will be the year, when global average temperatures breached the 1.5C limit above pre-industrial levels for the very first time. An unlikely drop in temperatures over the last two months could theoretically prevent this but increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere make it highly impossible. 

Not just 1.5C, 2024 will likely record 1.55C hotter than the pre-industrial average, as per data available so far. This does not mean that the pledge nations made in the form of the Paris Agreement in 2015 to keep temperatures below 1.5C is broken, but it shows the trend of increasing temperatures, which is unlikely to revert unless emissions are brought down considerably. 

A warmer planet would mean more extreme weather events like intense storms, hotter summers, and heavier rainfall. The news about the breach comes just days before COP29 is scheduled to begin in Azerbaijan. 

With the US election results coming in, it will be interesting to see how the world reacts and achieves at this conference.  

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Scientists use light echoes to illuminate black holes

Scientists are keen to understand black holes and how they work but studying them using telescopes is difficult since no light comes from them. Now, researchers at the Institute of Advanced Study have found a novel approach that could ‘shed light’ on their workings. This can be achieved by using light echoes. 

When light from another source passes near a black hole, its path is bent by the latter’s gravitational field. Known as gravitational lensing, this result in the light taking multiple paths before it reaches Earth. In some cases, light can also loop around the black hole a few times before reaching us, referred to as a light echo. 

Scientists have wondered about light echoes for years but never found a way to measure them until recently. The IAS researchers used interferometric telescopes to determine faint echo signatures from stronger direct signatures of light and suggested that the approach would work to determine the spins of black holes. 

The researchers added that detecting light echoes will become easier by placing one such telescope in space and one on Earth. 

The research findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

When tree planting does not work

Planting trees sounds like the optimum solution to counter climate change and a warming planet. Trees help reduce carbon levels in the air, attract rain, and prevent droughts, and planting them is easy to implement and demonstrates action against the changing climate. 

However, the approach does not work in the Arctic regions. 

A perspective piece published in Nature Geoscience argues that planting trees in the boreal and Arctic regions increases surface darkness and reduces the reflection of light which was happening due to snow covers. This results in the warming of the region. 

Furthermore, instead of trapping carbon from the air, trees in these regions remove carbon from the soil, which negatively affects the region’s biota. Planting trees in this region has economic advantages but does nothing to mitigate climate change. 

This has been known for decades, but tree-planting policies continue in these regions, which are warming the region further. 

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Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Ameya

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