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The latest science news and developments about space, animal behavior, plant life, the brain, genetics, archaeology, robots and climate change, along with Carl Zimmer and the weekly Science Times.

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Every month since March, when the first El Niño Watch was issued, forecasters, government officials around the world, and yes, even those in the media, have been watching with bated breath to see whether various climate agencies would officially pronounce the arrival of that infamous climate phenomenon. So far, no clear-cut El Niño has been declared, but that hasn't stopped the continual updates and dissections of the most recent seasonal forecasts and trends in ocean temperatures and winds, as if they were the latest juicy plot twist on "Scandal" or "Game of Thrones."

If you aren't among those obsessively tracking Kelvin waves and the Nino3.4 region - and the next "official" update is expected on Aug. 7 - you may wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, El Niño is just the warming of ocean waters in the tropical Pacific. So why the heck do we care so much about it?

We care because this seemingly isolated event is just one part of the global climate system and can actually have major influences on the weather and climate around the world, from the U.S. to Australia to eastern Africa. For example, El Niño shifts atmospheric patterns in a way that typically brings more rain to the southern U.S., but drought to Indonesia. Those changes can, in turn, have economic and health consequences, such as altering the crop yields in agricultural markets or providing a more conducive environment for the spread of malaria. Because of these impacts, groups at the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction, or NCEP (which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and other organizations around the world watch the changing conditions in the Pacific Ocean and make forecasts for whether and when an El Niño might develop.

El Niño also leads to warmer average global temperatures, which come atop the underlying trend of rising temperatures spurred by global warming. The only year in the top 10 warmest globally that wasn't during the 21st century was 1998, when one of the strongest El Niños on record was in force.

Not all of El Niño's effects are negative: The atmospheric changes it spurs tend to tamp down on tropical cyclones and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean basin, something denizens of the Caribbean and Gulf and East coasts of the U.S. surely appreciate.

"In an El Niño year, you have winners and losers," Walter Baethgen, a senior research scientist with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University's Earth Institute, said in an IRI video.

The climate impacts typically associated with an El Niño during the months of December, January, and February.
Click image to enlarge. Credit: NOAA

Exactly what impacts are seen and when they emerge can depend on the timing of an El Niño - the current event is expected to emerge late this summer or early in the fall. But even while one is building, it can still influence weather conditions, as this event seems to be doing. The strength that a full-blown El Niño achieves can also affect the impacts it brings - for example, the excess rains that parched California so desperately needs seem only to be a feature of a strong El Niño.

"There is a lot of variety in exactly how strong they get, exactly what month they begin, or are identified as El Niño events, as well as the exact month in which they peak," said IRI director Lisa Goddard during a press call held by the climate communication group Climate Nexus. "So all of these differences can influence (El Niño's) regional climate impacts."

What Is El Niño?

El Niño is a cyclical climate phenomenon that occurs every 3 to 5 years (though that return period can be as short as 2 and as long as 7 years). It's defining characteristic is the buildup of warmer-than-normal surface waters over the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean. (This warm phase is part of a larger cycle called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation that also has a neutral phase and a cold phase, called La Niña.)

These warmer waters are linked to - or coupled with, as atmospheric scientists say - changes in the trade winds over the region. In neutral conditions, these winds blow from east to west across the basin, piling up the warm water in the western portion of the basin, near Indonesia. But during El Niño, the winds relax, and the warm water slides back east, like a ball rolling down a hill.

The warm water fuels thunderstorms in the atmosphere overhead, which in turn warms the atmosphere through a process called latent heating. The shift in where the warm water is and the increase in the heat the ocean releases cause a shift in this storminess and heating, which affects one of the main circulations of the atmosphere, the Hadley circulation. The Hadley circulation features air rising near the equator and traveling toward higher latitudes where it sinks and flows back to the equator. The increased heat from El Niño turbocharges the poleward flow, which in turn causes further changes in atmospheric flow, including to the jet stream over the Pacific.

The Pacific Ocean showing sea surface height measurements taken by the U.S. and French TOPEX/Poseidon satellite. The image shows sea surface height relative to normal ocean conditions on Dec. 1, 1997. In this image, the white and red areas indicate unusual patterns of heat storage, indicative of strong El Niño conditions.
Credit: NASA

"The phenomenon itself is specific to the tropical Pacific, even though it does have worldwide impacts," Goddard said during the press call.

While the atmospheric conditions with the current anticipated event haven't yet shaped up to the point that NCEP and IRI forecasters are willing to officially declare an El Niño, they still place an 80 percent chance on one happening by late fall.

"It's fairly confident, but it's not a slam dunk," Anthony Barnston, IRI's chief forecaster, told Climate Central.

Teleconnections

Not every place in the world is affected by El Niño, and not every El Niño produces the same effects as previous ones. But "there are places that have fairly reliable" climate effects, or teleconnections, Barnston said.

The most robust effects are precipitation-related. Both Indonesia and northern South America typically see below-normal rains that can lead to drought, while more rain is typically seen over southeastern South America, eastern equatorial Africa and the southern U.S.

The above-average rainfall in the southern U.S. is linked to the changes in the jet stream, as it tends to funnel more storms over the region.

There is interestingly one tiny area of northern South America, along the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, that actually sees increased rainfall. The rains are driven by the warmer waters just off the coast as they fuel storm activity. Such rains were actually seen earlier this spring when a particularly warm blob of water worked its way over to the eastern Pacific and fueled storms.

Not all of the changes linked to El Niño always occur: El Niño is linked to a less active monsoon over India, leading to drought conditions there, but this effect was missing during the 1997-1998 El Niño, one of the strongest on record. (The monsoon has been lackluster so far this year, but it's unclear whether or not that's related to the burgeoning El Niño, Barnston said.)

"So there is an expectation of certain ENSO impacts, but there's not a guarantee, and so that's where seasonal forecasts become very important," he said.

El Niño can also lead to temperature changes, with the northern tier of the U.S. tending to be warmer than normal and the southern tier cooler. The latter effect is related to the increased precipitation, which tends to moderate temperatures, while the former is linked to the stronger jet stream (and is the more robust of the two connections). The more intense flow tends to fence off cold Arctic air, keeping incursions like last winter's Polar Vortex episodes from impacting the northern parts of the country.

The temperature effects of El Niño go beyond trends in particular regions. The heat released from the oceans bumps up the planet's average temperature, in addition to the warming caused by the heat trapped by accumulating greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere. (The tendency toward cooler conditions in the Pacific over the past couple of decades could be the main driver of the slowdown in the rate of warming over the same time period, as such conditions cause the ocean to store more of that building heat.)

"The state of the tropical Pacific can really affect global temperatures just through the fact that you're getting all this ocean heat either absorbed or released," Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said during the same press call as Goddard.

Even a moderate El Niño, like the one that arose in 2010, can raise global temperatures - 2010 was, in fact, the warmest year on record. If the current El Niño is commensurate with the 2010 one, global temperatures will likely top those in 2010 because they will add a similar amount of heat on top of the already warmer background created by global warming, Goddard said.

All in the timing

The biggest impact to global temperatures tends to come about two to four months after an El Niño peaks, which typically happens during the Northern Hemisphere winter. (An El Niño event usually peters out by March of the year after it develops.) That background seasonal climate helps determine what the impacts of the El Niño are.

"The seasonality-what the weather and the climate is typically at that time of year-is important to how ENSO impacts it," Goddard said. So knowing when El Niño will kick in is key to anticipating economic and societal impacts.

In general, most of the impacts of El Niño come during its winter peak, particularly for the U.S. That's because the Pacific jet stream is weaker in the summer, so any changes to it make less of a difference than for the stronger winter jet stream, said NCEP forecaster Michelle L'Heureux.

Californians are hoping that the El Niño will bring enhanced winter rains, to make up for the disappointing rainy seasons of the past 3 years, which has left the entire state in high levels of drought. But the El Niño rains in Southern California are best correlated with strong El Niños. Right now it is not expected that this one will be strong, but even a moderate El Niño could mean that the area sees something closer to a normal rainy season, Barnston said.

Some places do see their biggest impacts outside of the Northern Hemisphere winter: Dryness that can affect Africa's Sahel and damage agriculture there tends to occur from July to September (meaning the area could avoid much of this impact if the El Niño doesn't fully develop soon).

The climate impacts typically associated with an El Niño during the months of June, July, and August.
Click image to enlarge. Credit: NOAA

In general, the Southern Hemisphere tends to see more year-round effects than the Northern Hemisphere, L'Heureux said, because El Niño peaks during their summer, though their strongest effects also come during their winter.

The impacts in Southern Hemisphere locales like Australia and Indonesia are also more instantaneous than those in the U.S. because of their proximity to the region where El Niño originates. They also see stronger, more robust impacts.

The drier conditions typically seen in both of those spots can increase the odds of damaging wildfires, which come along with economic costs, as well as impacting crop yields. If, for example, drought reduces the Australian wheat crop, that can affect the availability of wheat in food markets as well as food prices, Baethgen said in the IRI video (though wheat from areas that see more rain could offset this). Countries like the U.S. are more resilient in the face of such effects than places like Mozambique, whose agriculture is sensitive to El Niño's Southern Hemisphere summer effects, Barnston said. Forecasting can help such vulnerable societies prepare for these impacts.

Places that see more rain could see negative as well as positive impacts. A little rain can be helpful in places like southeastern South America, but too much can expose crops to disease. Excessive rains can also have health impacts: In Kenya during the 1998 El Niño, rains caused catastrophic flooding that seriously damaged health infrastructure and spread malaria and Rift Valley fever.

Those impacts are why forecasters like Barnston, Goddard, and L'Heureux are working to better predict El Niños and understand the climate impacts they have. It is also why places like the IRI and the World Meteorological Organization are working to disseminate what we do know about El Niño and improve communication and coordination between meteorologists and government agencies and officials who would need to prepare for potential impacts.

"There have been major improvements in the understanding of El Niño, its climate effects and associated impacts over the past several decades within and, importantly, outside the scientific community," said Maxx Dilley, director of the WMO's Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch.

An IRI study conducted earlier this year and found, for example, that agricultural interests are increasingly using El Niño forecasts to prepare for future seasons.

There's still a lot of work to do to be able to predict El Niños further out and understand why some effects only show up sometimes, but if forecasters could take what they know and create better awareness of and preparedness for the impacts that are known, "the El Niño years have a potential to be the least costly to society," Goddard said.

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Every month since March, when the first El Niño Watch was issued, forecasters, government officials around the world, and yes, even those in the media, have been watching with bated breath to see whether various climate agencies would officially pronounce the arrival of that infamous climate phenomenon.

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How Many Species Are On Earth? | Visual.ly

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This infographic communicates a prediction of the number of eukaryotic species on Earth in relation to the number of known species.

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earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions

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See current wind, weather, ocean, and pollution conditions, as forecast by supercomputers, on an interactive animated map. Updated every three hours.

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Promo image ACEEE

So much to improve...

Waste is ugly. Doing more with less is beautiful. Many of us try to live by these sayings in our personal lives, but at the country level, too few nations really give their best effort. Energy efficiency makes almost everything else that we need to do to transition to a better, more sustainable future easier because so many of our problems can trace their roots back to energy production. If we use less energy to do what we need to do, we both directly reduce pollution from whatever dirty sources we're using, and we make it easier to replace those with clean power.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), who has been ranking U.S. states by their energy efficiency (see below), has come out with a report that looks at how energy efficient 16 of the biggest economies in the world are. If you look at the map at the top of this article, it shows the results, with the U.S. sadly coming near the bottom, behind China and India, among other big countries, and slightly ahead of Russia, Brazil, and Mexico.

Here's the list if you can't see the numbers on the graphic too well:

(1) Germany; (2) Italy; (3) the European Union; (tied for 4) China; (tied for 4) France; (tied for 6) Japan; (tied for 6) United Kingdom; (8) Spain; (9) Canada; (10) Australia; (11) India; (12) South Korea; (13) United States; (14) Russia; (15) Brazil; and (16) Mexico.

Note that the EU was also evaluated as a whole, and ranks #3. Very good for such a diverse set of countries!
ACEEE/Promo image
ACEEE Executive Director Steven Nadel said: "Germany is a prime example of a nation that has made energy efficiency a top priority. The United States, long considered an innovative and competitive world leader, has progressed slowly and has made limited progress since our last report, even as Germany, Italy, China, and other nations surge ahead."

Energy efficiency isn't important just for environmental matters. It also helps with economic competitiveness, and is thus very important for job creation and overall economic vigor.
ACEEE/Promo image
U.S. Congressman Peter Welch (Vermont) said: "There's really no excuse for the U.S. lagging behind other nations on energy efficiency. States like Vermont have demonstrated that energy efficiency saves money, reduces environmental impact, and creates jobs. And, in an environment of gridlock, there is bipartisan common ground on this issue in Congress. I hope the 2014 International Scorecard is a wakeup call that it's time for America to step-up and lead on energy efficiency."
LLNL/Public Domain
The graph above was created by the Lawrence Livermore National Labs and shows each energy source in the U.S., how that energy is used, and how much is actually doing something useful and how much is wasted. As you can see, waste still accounts for 61% of all energy used in the country, leaving a huge opportunity for improvement. While we'll never reach 100% because of the laws of physics, we could certainly get a lot closer to it (just look at the part of the graph for petroleum and transportation -- waste is huge there because combustion engines are inherently very inefficient. Moving over to electric cars will help tremendously, and even better if the electricity comes from clean sources).

Waste is ugly. Doing more with less is beautiful. Many of us try to live by these sayings in our personal lives, but at the country level, too few nations really give their best effort.

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The U.S. ranks 13 out of 16 countries in energy efficiency, Germany is #1

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So much to improve... Waste is ugly. Doing more with less is beautiful. Many of us try to live by these sayings in our personal lives, but at the country level, too few nations really give their best effort.

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A scanning electron microscope image of a piece of mesh solar panel that was used to develop a new solar battery. The device combines the energy-capturing abilities of a solar cell with the energy-storing capabilities of a battery.

Credit: Yiying Wu, Ohio State University

A new kind of solar cell could store electrical energy without any help from traditional batteries, according to a new study.

Researchers at Ohio State University, in Columbus, have developed what they're calling the world's first solar battery - a hybrid device that combines the energy-capturing abilities of a solar cell with the energy-storing capabilities of a battery.

The new cell could lower the cost of harvesting renewable energy from the sun by as much as 25 percent, according to the researchers. [ Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]

The key to the device's success is a mesh solar panel that allows both sunlight and air to enter the cell. This porous material represents a departure from the solid semiconductor materials typically used to make solar cells. Allowing both light and oxygen into the cell enables the chemical reactions that typically occur inside a battery to occur within the solar cell itself.

"The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy," lead researcher Yiying Wu, a professor of chemistry at Ohio State, said in a statement. "We've integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost."

But this innovative device can do more than just lower the cost of renewable energy, Wu said. It can also help solve a problem that's been plaguing scientists for years: how to store energy from the sun without losing a lot of that energyin the process.

A loss of electricity naturally occurs within any solar cell when the electrons released by the cell's semiconductor materials travel outside the cell and into a battery. Only about 80 percent of the electrons produced by solar cells successfully complete this journey. But the new solar cell is designed to ensure that 100 percent of the electrons captured find their way into a battery, the researchers said.

This high efficiency is possible because the conversion of sunlight to electric current isn't happening inside the solar cell before being transferred to the battery. Since the battery is located inside the cell, electrons are not able to escape, the researchers said.

The hybrid solar cell-battery is made up of three electrodes, or materials that conduct electricity. The first electrode is the mesh solar panel (which is really a collection of solar cells), the second electrode is made of a thin sheet of porous carbon and the third electrode is a sheet of lithium metal. Between these three electrodes is an electrolyte that can shuttle charges back and forth.

When the battery is in use - a phase known as "discharge" - the lithium metal and porous carbon electrodes are connected to an external circuit. Lithium ions can then travel to the carbon electrode and form lithium peroxide. This chemical process drives an external electrical current, Wu told Live Science in an email.

To recharge the solar battery, light hits the mesh panel and generates electron-hole pairs, which can carry an electrical charge. One of the most important features of the device is that it uses added molecules, known as redox shuttle additives, to transfer these charges from the mesh solar panel to the lithium electrode, where they cause the lithium peroxide to decompose into oxygen and lithium ions.

The oxygen is released out of the cell, but the lithium ions, as well as electrical charges, are stored inside the battery in the lithium electrode, Wu said.

"Basically, it's a breathing battery," he said. "It breathes in air when it discharges, and breathes out when it charges."

The researchers are still experimenting with other ways to improve the design of their solar battery, a project that is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The study outlining the new battery was published in the Oct. 3 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

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New Solar Battery Could Generate Cheaper Clean Energy

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A new kind of solar cell could store electrical energy without any help from traditional batteries, according to a new study. Researchers at Ohio State University, in Columbus, have developed what they're calling the world's first solar battery - a hybrid device that combines the energy-capturing abilities of a solar cell with the energy-storing capabilities of a battery.

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Public Domain Map of global air pollution compiled by the World Health Organisation

Just yesterday, we wrote about the World Health Organization's new categorization of air pollution as "carcinogenic to humans". The map above was created by the WHO to show particulate matter (PM) pollution around the world, measuring specifically PM10, or particulates with a diameter of 10 micrometers.

The database contains results of urban outdoor air pollution monitoring from almost 1100 cities in 91 countries. Air quality is represented by annual mean concentration of fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5, i.e. particles smaller than 10 or 2.5 microns).

The database covers the period from 2003 to 2010, with the majority of values for the years 2008 and 2009. The primary sources of data include publicly available national/subnational reports and web sites, regional networks such as the Asian Clean Air Initiative and the European Airbase, and selected publications. The database aims to be representative for human exposure, and therefore primarily captures measurements from monitoring stations located in urban background, urban traffic, residential, commercial and mixed areas.
The world's average PM10 levels by region range from 21 to 142 ug/m3, with a world's average of 71 ug/m3. ( source)

As you can see, North-America is doing relatively well, Europe isn't doing as well (probably in part because diesel is more popular as a source of fuel), Asia and most of the Middle-East ares doing pretty badly, and the worst cities are in India, Iran, and Pakistan.

You can see a bigger version of the map here.

See also: WHO now puts air pollution in the same category as tobacco smoke, UV radiation and plutonium!

The database contains results of urban outdoor air pollution monitoring from almost 1100 cities in 91 countries.

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This map shows air pollution levels in 1,100 cities around the world

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Just yesterday, we wrote about the World Health Organization's new categorization of air pollution as "carcinogenic to humans". The map above was created by the WHO to show particulate matter (PM) pollution around the world, measuring specifically PM10, or particulates with a diameter of 10 micrometers.

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CC BY-SA 2.0 Flickr

The best kind of invention is one that makes lemonade out of lemons. Jellyfish aren't quite taking over the world's oceans, but they are certainly causing big problems, enough for all kinds of original ways of reducing their numbers to have been proposed. The best that I've seen so far comes from research initially done at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

But let's start at the beginning: What's special about jellyfish?

The most obvious thing is that their bodies are 90% water, and they can hold this huge amount of liquid without disintegrating. This type of super-high absorption is exactly what we need in products like diapers, tampons, medical sponges, paper towels, etc.

So a startup called Cine'al is connecting the dots and claims to have found a way to turn jellyfish into something they call Hydromash, a "super-absorber" that can hold several time its weight in liquid and could be used in products that need the high absorbency. But unlike traditional super-absorbing polymers, it would both help fight back against the ocean invaders and be entirely biodegradable, taking about 1 month to break down. This biodegradability is a big deal, because landfills are full of diapers (we recommend trying cloth diapers, but not everybody does).

Of course, this is still not commercially available and could turn out to be vaporware, as so many things are. But the idea is certainly good, and I hope that it will be brought to fruition by someone, somewhere. Solving two problems at once is always nice.

But jellyfish aren't all problematic. Here's a good free documentary on these beautiful (at least underwater) creatures:

Via Times of Israel

Solving two problems at once (or more!) is the most satisfying way to go about improving the world.

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When life gives you invasive jellyfish.... turn them into paper towels and diapers!

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The best kind of invention is one that makes lemonade out of lemons. Jellyfish aren't quite taking over the world's oceans, but they are certainly causing big problems, enough for all kinds of original ways of reducing their numbers to have been proposed.

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The A4 bus service from Bristol to Bath in the United Kingdom might as well be called "the number two." It runs on human poop and food waste.

The U.K.'s first "bio-bus" is powered by biomethane gas, which isgenerated through the treatment of sewage.

With a full tank, the bus can travel up to 186 miles, while producing up to 30% fewer emissions compared to diesel-powered buses.

The eco-friendly bus started regular service on Monday and is expected to carry around 10,000 passengers a month between the Bristol airport and the historic town of Bath.

"The bus is powered by people living in the local area, including quite possibly those on the bus itself," said Mohammed Saddiq from GENeco, the company that runs the sewage treatment facility providing the fuel.

He said one person's annual waste could power the bus for around 37 miles.

Related: In Cleveland, sheep could be key to the city's renewal

But don't worry -- smelly fumes are not a problem.

Biomethane gas is generated from sewage using bacteria that breaks down bio-waste into methane and carbon dioxide. Throughout the process, all impurities are removed to produce odor-free emissions, said Saddiq.

The bio-bus is the latest invention to demonstrate that human waste can be a valuable source of green energy.

In the U.K., human waste is already used to heat thousands of homes. Experts estimate that biomethane produced from sewage could replace around 10% of the U.K.'s domestic gas needs if the nation's waste is used at full capacity.

CNNMoney (London) First published November 24, 2014: 10:44 AM ET

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The U.K.'s first "bio-bus" is powered by biomethane gas, which isgenerated through the treatment of sewage. With a full tank, the bus can travel up to 186 miles, while producing up to 30% fewer emissions compared to diesel-powered buses.