The Greenland ice sheet will lose mass at an accelerated rate throughout the 21st century, with a direct link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and the extent of Greenland’s mass loss. To combat this phenomenon, and therefore global warming, it is essential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Every day new ideas emerge to slow down global warming, such as the use of solar geoengineering, a climate intervention that consists of artificially reducing solar radiation above the ice caps and thus limiting the melting of the ice. How can this be done? The idea is to inject sulphur into the stratosphere, a stable meteorological zone located between 8 and 15 km above sea level in the atmosphere,” explains Xavier Fettweis,climatologist and director of the Climatology Laboratory at ULiège. The sulphur will then act as a sort of mirror that will reflect part of the solar radiation back into space.” An intervention which therefore makes it possible to reduce the amount of sunshine on earth, similar to what happens during volcanic eruptions. In 1991, the eruption of Pinatubo (Philippines) injected millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing a drop in global temperatures of around 0.5°C. This observation led to the development of solar geoengineering scenarios. Are these scenarios really reliable and risk-free? This is what the ULiège climatologists wanted to test.

We used a plausible scenario of solar geoengineering (G6solar) that would reduce global warming by a factor of 2 on a global scale compared with the most pessimistic scenario in which nothing would be done about the climate,” continues Xavier Fettweis. By forcing the MAR (Regional Atmospheric Model) developed at ULiège to use this scenario, we show that the reduction in solar radiation associated with this scenario would make it possible to locally reduce the melting at the surface of the Greenland ice sheet by 6% in addition to the global reduction in global warming. While these results seem encouraging, the researchers insist that this type of scenario would not be sufficient to maintain the ice cap in a stable state by the end of this century. Moreover, this type of intervention is not without risk since it could have a significant impact on the ozone layer and on water cycles and precipitation, accentuating the disparities between wet and dry regions. Only solar geoengineering scenarios, which are much more ambitious but becoming unrealistic and dangerous, would make it possible to save the cap,” concludes Xavier Fettweis. We are talking here about human and intentional intervention in the climate. A plan B that is not! It is therefore urgent to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by means that we know but are struggling to implement.

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However, scientists at the University of Plymouth have developed a simple algorithm-based model which accurately predicts how coastlines could be affected and — as a result — enables communities to identify the actions they might need to take in order to adapt.

The Forecasting Coastal Evolution (ForCE) model has the potential to be a game-changing advance in coastal evolution science, allowing adaptations in the shoreline to be predicted over timescales of anything from days to decades and beyond.

This broad range of timescales means that the model is capable of predicting both the short-term impact of violent storm or storm sequences (over days to years), as well as predicting the much longer-term evolution of the coast due to forecasted rising sea levels (decades).

The computer model uses past and present beach measurements, and data showing the physical properties of the coast, to forecast how they might evolve in the future and assess the resilience of our coastlines to erosion and flooding.

Unlike previous simple models of its kind that attempt forecasts on similar timescales, ForCE also considers other key factors like tidal, surge and global sea-level rise data to assess how beaches might be impacted by predicted climate change.

Beach sediments form our frontline of defence against coastal erosion and flooding, preventing damage to our valuable coastal infrastructure. So coastal managers are rightly concerned about monitoring the volume of beach sediment on our beaches.

The new ForCE model opens the door for managers to keeping track of the ‘health’ of our beaches without leaving their office and to predict how this might change in a future of rising sea level and changing waves.

Model predictions have shown to be more than 80% accurate in current tests, based on measurements of beach change at Perranporth, on the north coast of Cornwall in South West England.

It has also been show to accurately predict the formation and location of offshore sand bars in response to extreme storms, and how beaches recover in the months and years after storm events.

As such, researchers say it could provide an early warning for coastal erosion and potential overtopping, but its stability and efficiency suggests it could forecast coastal evolution over much longer timescales.

The study, published in Coastal Engineering, highlights that the increasing threats posed by sea level rise and coastal squeeze has meant that tracking the morphological evolution of sedimentary coasts is of substantial and increasing societal importance.

Dr Mark Davidson, Associate Professor in Coastal Processes, developed the ForCE model having previously pioneered a traffic light system based on the severity of approaching storms to highlight the level of action required to protect particular beaches.

He said: “Top level coastal managers around the world have recognised a real need to assess the resilience of our coastlines in a climate of changing waves and sea level. However, until now they have not had the essential tools that are required to make this assessment. We hope that our work with the ForCE model will be a significant step towards providing this new and essential capability.”

The University of Plymouth is one of the world’s leading authorities in coastal engineering and change in the face of extreme storms and sea-level rise.

Researchers from the University’s Coastal Processes Research Group have examined their effects everywhere from the coasts of South West England to remote islands in the Pacific Ocean.

They have shown the winter storms of 2013/14 were the most energetic to hit the Atlantic coast of western Europe since records began in 1948, and demonstrated that five years after those storms, many beaches had still not fully recovered.

CASE STUDY — PERRANPORTH, NORTH CORNWALL

Researchers from the University of Plymouth have been carrying out beach measurements at Perranporth in North Cornwall for more than a decade. Recently, this has been done as part of the £4million BLUE-coast project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, which aims to address the importance of sediment budgets and their role in coastal recovery.

Surveys have shown that following extreme storms, such as those which hit the UK in 2013/14, beaches recovered to some degree in the summer months but that recovery was largely wiped out in the following winters. That has created a situation where high water shorelines are further landward at sites such as Perranporth.

Sea level is presently forecast to rise by about 0.5m over the next 100 years. However, there is large uncertainty attached to this and it could easily be more than 1m over the same time-frame. If the latter proves to be true, prominent structures on the coastline — such as the Watering Hole bar — will be under severe threat within the next 60 years.

The findings will put scientists on the path of finding a way to better diagnose and treat VITT, possibly prevent it and potentially make vaccines safer.

The researchers’ article was fast-tracked for publication today by the journal Nature in its accelerated article preview because of the importance of the research.

“Our work also answers important questions about the connection between antibodies and clotting,” said Ishac Nazy, principal investigator and corresponding author of the study. He added it will have both diagnostic and therapeutic implications.

Nazy is the scientific director of the McMaster Platelet Immunology Laboratory and an associate professor of medicine for the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster.

The COVID-19 vaccines using adenoviral vectors, such as those from AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson, are associated with the VITT clotting disorder caused by unusual antibodies to blood platelets that are triggered by the vaccine.

The study shows, at a molecular level, how those unusual antibodies stick to components from blood platelets causing them to trigger clot formation.

“The antibodies stick to the platelet protein called platelet factor 4 (PF4) in a very unique and specific orientation, which allows them to align with other antibodies and platelets in the precise formation that leads to a self-perpetuating vicious cycle of clotting events,” said Nazy.

“These disease-causing aggregates quickly activate platelets, creating a highly intense clotting environment in patients,” he added.

The dangerous reaction to the adenovirus vector vaccines has been found to occur in one in 60,000 of people receiving the vaccine in Canada.

“The intention of our study was to better understand how the severe clots which characterize VITT develop,” said Donald Arnold, study co-investigator and co-medical director of the McMaster Platelet Immunology Laboratory.

“A basic principle of medical care is to understand how the disorder happens and, in doing so, develop better treatments.”

John Kelton, co-investigator of the study and co-medical director of the McMaster Platelet Immunology Laboratory, added: “We believe that this study is important because it clarifies how the clotting ensues, and because we have been able to identify the molecules involved.

“The next step is to develop a rapid diagnostic and accurate test to diagnose VITT. Our major interest is now to move upstream from how the clots happen to preventing them from occurring.”

Current rapid tests yield false-negative results, and testing relies on more time-consuming tests to confirm VITT. This study now explains why the rapid tests frequently fail and allows for new strategies to improve diagnostic testing.

The investigators altered the molecular composition of the PF4 protein and, using this technology, were able to identify the binding region on the protein.

The research team included Angela Huynh, a research scientist in the McMaster Platelet Immunology Laboratory, and Mercy Daka, a graduate student of McMaster’s Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences.

The researchers thanked the agencies supporting the research, including the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Ontario Ministry of Health.

Researchers say these results are among the first to show that mRNA vaccination benefits even those individuals who experience breakthrough infections.

“One of the unique things about this study is that it measured the secondary benefits of the vaccine,” says Sarang Yoon, D.O., a study co-author, assistant professor at the University of Utah Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH), and principal investigator of the RECOVER (Research on the Epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Essential Response Personnel) study in Utah.

The study, published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, builds on preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March.

The study was designed to measure the risks and rates of infection among those on the front lines of the pandemic.

“We gave these vaccines to some of the highest risk groups in this country — doctors, nurses, and first responders,” Yoon says. “These are the people who are getting exposure to the virus day in and day out, and the vaccine protected them against getting the disease. Those who unfortunately got COVID-19 despite being vaccinated were still better off than those who didn’t.”

The study found that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were:

• 91% effective in reducing risk for infection once participants were “fully” vaccinated, two weeks after the second dose.
• 81% effective in reducing risk for infection after “partial” vaccination, two weeks after the first dose but before the second dose was given.

The HEROES-RECOVER network recruited 3,975 participants at eight sites. In addition to Salt Lake City, sites included Miami, Florida; Temple, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Duluth, Minnesota; and Phoenix and Tucson, as well as other areas in Arizona. Participants submitted samples for COVID-19 testing on a weekly basis for 17 weeks between Dec. 13, 2020 and April 10, 2021. Participants also reported weekly whether they had COVID-19-like symptoms, including fever, shortness of breath, and loss of taste and smell.

Only 204 (5%) of the participants eventually tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Of these, 156 were unvaccinated, 32 had an indeterminate vaccine status, and 16 were fully or partially vaccinated. The fully or partially vaccinated participants who developed breakthrough had milder symptoms than those who were unvaccinated:

• Presence of fever was reduced 58% percent among those vaccinated with a breakthrough infection.
• Days spent sick in bed were reduced by 60% among those who developed a breakthrough infection.
• Detection of the virus was reduced by 70% percent among those with breakthrough infections, from 8.9 days to 2.7 days.
• The three people who were hospitalized were not immunized, meaning that no one who developed a breakthrough infection was hospitalized.

These findings also suggest that fully or partially vaccinated individuals who get COVID-19 might be less likely to spread the virus to others. The researchers found that infected study participants who had been fully or partially vaccinated when infected had 40% less detectable virus in the nose and did so for six fewer days compared to those who were unvaccinated.

Overall, the researchers conclude the study’s findings support the CDC’s recommendation to get fully vaccinated as soon as possible.

“I hope these findings reassure the public that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe and protect us from this severe disease,” Yoon says.

The RECOVER study is ongoing, and results from future phases will help determine how long COVID-19 vaccines protect against infection and the real-world effectiveness of newer vaccines. A new study will test the same questions in children 12 and older who are now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. The research will also investigate how well COVID-19 vaccines protect against new variants now circulating in the U.S., including the highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.

The study, “Prevention and Attenuation of Covid-19 with the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 Vaccines,” appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In addition to Dr. Yoon, Kurt Hegmann, M.D., director of RMCOEH, Matthew Thiese, Ph.D., associate professor, and Andrew Phillips, M.D., assistant professor of RMCOEH, were co-investigators on the Utah portion of the study.