जलवायु परिवर्तन – Page 2 – आवारा मुसाफिर

COP16: From forests to oceans, nature in a dire state

October 20, 2024162 Views

Global destruction of nature has reached unprecedented extremes. As the United Nations two-week COP16 biodiversity summit kicks off on Monday in Cali, Colombia, here is what you need to know about nature's rapid decline - and its importance to the global economy. ANIMALS AND PLANTS Plants and animals play significant parts in keeping nature humming, from cycling nutrients throughout an ecosystem to aerating soils and engineering rivers. Without plants and animals, the world would not be habitable for humans. However, more than a quarter of the world's known species, or a total of about 45,300 species, are now threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). FILE PHOTO: Najin (front) and her daughter Pa...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

Global coral bleaching event expands, now the largest on record

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 17, 2024162 Views

The mass bleaching of coral reefs around the world since February 2023 is now the most extensive on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told Reuters this week. A staggering 77% of the world’s coral reef areas – from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Indian oceans – have so far been subjected to bleaching-level heat stress, according to satellite data, as climate change fuels record and near-record ocean temperatures across the world. "This event is still increasing in spatial extent and we’ve broken the previous record by more than 11% in about half the amount of time,” said NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator Derek Manzello. “This could potentially have serious ramifications for the ultimate response of these reefs to these bleaching events.” FILE P...

खबरनामाघटनाएंजलवायु परिवर्तनपेरू

Record wildfires ravage Peru’s ecosystems and wildlife

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 12, 2024213 Views

A record number of fires tore through Peru over the past few weeks, wreaking havoc across the country’s ecosystems as grasslands, dry forests, coastal areas, and the Amazon were set ablaze. In northern Peru, spectacled bears fled burning dry forests to nearby towns where some were shot by frightened residents. Jaguars in the southern Amazon, with nowhere to flee, were left charred on trees. Grasslands and wetlands that play a key role in storing water were left in ashes. “The rainforest is usually impervious to fire,” said Paul Rosolie, a conservationist and founder of JungleKeepers, an NGO that patrols and preserves the Amazon in Peru, adding that they’ve seen burned turtles, snakes, birds, and jaguars after recent patrols. “The forest is their world, so when you burn it, they die....

जलवायु परिवर्तन

Vegetation is taking over snow in Antarctica

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 8, 2024184 Views

Lush landscape is spreading at an alarming rate in a place where temperatures are soaring A fast-warming region of Antarctica is getting greener with shocking speed. Satellite imagery of the region reveals that the area covered by plants increased by almost 14 times over 35 years — a trend that will spur rapid change of Antarctic ecosystems. “It's the beginning of dramatic transformation,” says Olly Bartlett, a remote-sensing specialist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, and an author of the study, published recently in Nature Geoscience, that reports these results. From white to green Bartlett and his colleagues analysed images taken between 1986 and 2021 of the Antarctic Peninsula — a part of the continent that juts north towards the tip of South America. Th...

जलवायु परिवर्तनस्विट्जरलैंड

Swiss glacier melt exceeds average in 2024 after hot summer

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 2, 2024147 Views

Swiss glaciers melted at an above-average rate in 2024 as a blistering hot summer thawed through abundant snowfall, monitoring body GLAMOS said on Tuesday. Earlier this year, glaciologists had celebrated heavy winter and spring snow dumps in the Alps, hoping this would signal a halt to years of hefty declines or even a reversal of losses. A drone view of crevasses on Morteratsch Glacier amid climate change, in Pontresina, Switzerland, September 3, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse But with average August temperatures a few degrees above freezing even at the 3,571 meter high Jungfraujoch station perched above the Aletsch Glacier, scientists measured record ice losses across the country that month. Overall, GLAMOS said Swiss glaciers lost 2.5% of their volume this year which was abo...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

Polar bears are now half the number of 40 years ago

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 25, 2024201 Views

In the gateway to the Arctic, fat, ice and polar bears are crucial. All three are in trouble Searching for polar bears where the Churchill River dumps into Canada’s massive Hudson Bay, biologist Geoff York scans a region that’s on a low fat, low ice diet because of climate change. And it’s getting lower on polar bears. A polar bear cub walks along rocks toward its mother, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, near Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel) There are now about 600 polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay, one of the most threatened of the 20 populations of the white beasts. That’s about half the number of 40 years ago, says York, senior director of research and policy at Polar Bears International. His latest study, with a team of scientists from various fields, shows tha...

खबरनामाघटनाएंजलवायु परिवर्तन

Worst drought on record lowers Amazon rivers to all-time lows

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 18, 2024191 Views

The worst drought on record has lowered the water level of the rivers in the Amazon basin to historic lows, in some cases drying up riverbeds that were previously navigable waterways. The Solimoes, one of the main tributaries of the mighty Amazon River whose waters originate in the Peruvian Andes, has fallen to its lowest level on record in Tabatinga, the Brazilian town on the border with Colombia. A Hopper barge is seen stranded on a sandbank at the Solimoes River, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River, during a Greenpeace flyover to inspect what the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (Cemaden) says is the most intense and widespread drought Brazil has experienced since records began in 1950, near Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil Septembe...

कनाडाजलवायु परिवर्तन

As warming threatens polar bear tourism, a Canadian town adapts and thrives

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 11, 2024215 Views

Change has broken, remade and continues to reshape this remote town where tundra meets forest on the shore of Hudson Bay. The economic base collapsed when the military left town. Rail service and cargo ships — the lifeblood of supplies for a town not connected to the rest of the world by roads — blinked out. The weather is warming, signature animals are dwindling and even the ground is shifting. Through it all, Churchill has adapted. The town turned to tourism, luring people eager to see its plentiful polar bears. Leaders figured out ways to revitalize its port and railway. As climate change has edged into the picture, they’ve begun designing more flexible buildings and seeking to entice more varied visitors if, as scientists fear, shrinking sea ice crashes the bear population. T...

जलवायु परिवर्तनपेराग्वेब्राजील

South America’s rivers hit record lows as Brazil drought impact spreads

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 10, 2024215 Views

South America's Paraguay River, a key thoroughfare for grains, has hit a record low in Paraguay's capital Asuncion, with water levels depleted by a severe drought upriver in Brazil that has hindered navigation along waterways in the Amazon. A powerful drought in the Amazon rainforest led on Monday to the lowest water levels on the Paraguay River in more than a century, disrupting commerce on the major waterway, creating hazards for local transport and offering a grim warning for other parts of the world. People fish, amid smoke coming from wildfires in neighbouring countries, on the shores of the Paraguay River, which has hit a record low water level due to a major drought, in Asuncion, Paraguay September 7, 2024. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo Paraguay’s Department of Meteorology and Hydr...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

This year could be the warmest humanity has ever measured

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 8, 2024230 Views

Summer 2024 sweltered to Earth’s hottest on record, making it even more likely that this year will end up as the warmest humanity has measured, European climate service Copernicus reported Friday. And if this sounds familiar, that’s because the records the globe shattered were set just last year as human-caused climate change, with a temporary boost from an El Nino, keeps dialing up temperatures and extreme weather, scientists said. The northern meteorological summer — June, July and August — averaged 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Copernicus. That’s 0.03 degrees Celsius (0.05 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the old record in 2023. Copernicus records go back to 1940, but American, British and Japanese records, which start in the mid-19th century, show ...