The European Alps, known for their breathtaking beauty and harsh weather conditions, are expected to become even more treacherous in the years to come. A recent study by scientists at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the University of Padova has found that climate change is supercharging summer storms in the region, leading to an increased risk of flash floods.

The researchers analyzed data from nearly 300 weather stations across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, and Italy. They discovered that a 2°C rise in regional temperature could double the frequency of short-lived summer rainstorms, making them more intense and destructive.

One such extreme event occurred in June 2018, when the city of Lausanne experienced an intense rainfall episode, with 41 millimeters of precipitation falling in just 10 minutes. The resulting flood caused estimated damage of 32 million Swiss Francs and left a trail of destruction in its wake.

These short-lived events are still rare in Switzerland today but are likely to become more frequent as the climate warms. Warm air retains more moisture, intensifying thunderstorm activity, and the Alpine region is warming faster than the global average. This makes it particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The scientists developed a statistical model incorporating physics principles to establish a link between temperature and rainfall frequency. They then used regional climate projections to simulate the future frequency of extreme precipitation events.

Their results show that an increase of just 1°C would already be highly problematic, with sudden and massive arrival of large volumes of water triggering flash floods and debris flows. This can lead to infrastructure damage and casualties, making it essential to understand how these events may evolve with climate change.

“We need to plan appropriate adaptation strategies, such as improving urban drainage infrastructure where necessary,” warns Nadav Peleg, researcher at UNIL and first author of the study.

Francesco Marra, researcher at UNIPD and one of the main authors of the study adds: “An increase of 1°C is not hypothetical; it’s likely to occur in the coming decades. We are already witnessing a tendency for summer storms to intensify, and this trend is only expected to worsen in the years ahead.”

The findings of this study should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers and residents of the Alpine region to take action now and prepare for the increased risk of flash floods brought about by climate change.

The discovery of Medium Chain Chlorinated Paraffins (MCCPs) in the Western Hemisphere’s atmosphere has sent shockwaves through the scientific community. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder stumbled upon this finding while conducting a field campaign in an agricultural region of Oklahoma, using a high-tech instrument to measure aerosol particles and their growth in the atmosphere.

“We’re starting to learn more about this toxic, organic pollutant that we know is out there, and which we need to understand better,” said Daniel Katz, CU Boulder chemistry PhD student and lead author of the study. MCCPs are currently under consideration for regulation by the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty to protect human health from long-standing and widespread chemicals.

While SCCPs, their “little cousins,” have been regulated since 2009 in the United States, researchers hypothesize that this may have led to an increase in MCCP levels in the environment. This discovery highlights the unintended consequences of regulation, where one chemical is replaced by another with similar properties.

Using a nitrate chemical ionization mass spectrometer, the team measured air at the agricultural site 24 hours a day for one month. They cataloged the data and identified distinct isotopic patterns in the compounds. The chlorinated paraffins found in MCCPs showed new patterns that were different from known chemical compounds.

The makeup of MCCPs is similar to PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which have been shown to break down slowly over time and are toxic to human health. Now that researchers know how to measure MCCPs, the next step might be to study their environmental impacts and seasonal changes in levels.

“We identified them, but we still don’t know exactly what they do when they are in the atmosphere, and they need to be investigated further,” Katz said. “I think it’s essential that we continue to have governmental agencies capable of evaluating the science and regulating these chemicals as necessary for public health and safety.”

Rivers are often considered peaceful and calming environments, but a new study has revealed that they play a more significant role in the global carbon cycle than previously thought. For the first time, scientists have discovered that ancient carbon, which has been stored in landscapes for thousands of years or more, can escape into the atmosphere as CO2 released from river surfaces.

Led by researchers at the University of Bristol and featured on the cover of Nature, this groundbreaking study found that plants and shallow soil layers are likely removing around one gigatonne more CO2 each year to counteract this ancient carbon leak. This means that these ecosystems play a pivotal role in combating climate change.

Dr. Josh Dean, the lead author, explained that the results were surprising because they showed that old carbon stores were leaking out much more into the atmosphere than previously estimated. “The implications are potentially huge for our understanding of global carbon emissions,” he said.

The study revealed that around 60% of river emissions come from long-term carbon stores accumulated over hundreds to thousands of years ago, or even longer. This is a significant shift in understanding the global carbon cycle, as scientists had previously believed that most river emissions were derived from recent plant growth and organic material broken down in the past 70 years or so.

The research team studied more than 700 river reaches across 26 countries worldwide, taking detailed radiocarbon measurements of CO2 and methane. By comparing these levels with a standard reference for modern atmospheric CO2, they dated the river carbon.

Co-author Prof Bob Hilton explained that around half of the emissions are young, while the other half are much older, released from deep soil layers and rock weathering formed thousands and even millions of years ago.

The findings have significant implications for our understanding of global carbon emissions. The researchers estimated that rivers globally release about two gigatonnes of carbon each year, which is a substantial amount compared to human activity resulting in 10-15 gigatonnes of carbon emissions. This means that re-evaluating these crucial parts of the global carbon cycle is essential.

Further research is planned to explore how the age of river carbon emissions varies across rivers and investigate how the age of these emissions may have changed through time.