जलवायु परिवर्तन – Page 23 – आवारा मुसाफिर

EU scientists say 2021 was world’s fifth-hottest year on record

January 10, 2022651 Views

Last year was the world's fifth hottest on record, while levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere hit new highs in 2021, European Union scientists said. The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a report on Monday that the last seven years were the world's warmest "by a clear margin" in records dating back to 1850 and the average global temperature in 2021 was 1.1-1.2C above 1850-1900 levels. The hottest years on record were 2020 and 2016. Countries committed under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C, the level scientists say would avoid its worst impacts. That would require emissions to roughly halve by 2030, but so far they have charged higher. As greenhouse gas emissions change the planet's...

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Climate change might be behind disappearance of ancient bears and lions

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 6, 2022371 Views

Lions and brown bears colonized North America in multiple synchronous waves of dispersal across the Bering Land Bridge An international team of researchers led by the University of Adelaide, suggest a change in climate is the likely cause of the mysterious disappearance of ancient lions and bears from parts of North America for a thousand years or more prior to the last Ice Age. In a study in Molecular Ecology, the researchers sequenced DNA from fossils of cave lions and bears from North America and Eurasia to better understand the timing and drivers of their past movement between continents. Co-author, Dr Kieren Mitchell from the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA said, “There's a common perception that outside of mass extinctions or direct human inte...

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Mass die-off of Magellanic penguins seen during 2019 heat wave

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 5, 2022257 Views

In June 2021, an unprecedented heat wave hit the Pacific Northwest and Canada, killing an estimated 1,400 people. On June 28, Seattle reached 108 F — an all-time high — while the village of Lytton in British Columbia recorded Canada’s highest-ever temperature of 121.3 F on June 29, the day before it was destroyed by a heat-triggered wildfire. Climate change is expected to bring more such extreme heat events globally, with far-reaching consequences not just for humans, but for wildlife and ecosystems. In 2019, University of Washington researchers witnessed this in Argentina at one of the world’s largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins. On Jan. 19, temperatures at the site in Punta Tombo, on Argentina’s southern coast, spiked to 44 C, or 111.2 F, and that was in the shade. A...

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Baked Alaska – record December warmth and winter rains

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 29, 2021917 Views

An unusual winter warm spell in Alaska has brought daytime temperatures soaring past 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5°C) and torrents of rain at a time of year normally associated with bitter cold and fluffy snow. At the island community of Kodiak, the air temperature at a tidal gauge hit 67 F (19.4°C) degrees on Sunday, the highest December reading ever recorded in Alaska, said scientist Rick Thoman of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. FILE PHOTO: A house in Cordova, Alaska is covered with snow and icicles in this handout photo released to Reuters January 9, 2012. REUTERS/Erv Petty/Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management/Handout He called it "absurd." The new benchmark high came amid a spate of balmy December extremes, Thoman said, includin...

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Beavers head north and impact Arctic landscape

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 23, 2021357 Views

New report maps their spread into tundra region of Alaska and northern Canada A new report has highlighted how beavers are heading further north and are having a significant impact on the landscape of northern Canada and Alaska. The Arctic Report Card 2021 report, published this month by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), describes how the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) has expanded its range in recent years and is now colonising Arctic territory. Beaver lodge (center), dam (bottom center), and pond on the Seward Peninsula in western Alaska. (Photo: Ken Tape, Aug 2021) Authored by members of the Arctic Beaver Observation Network (A-BON), including Dr Helen Wheeler of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), the report details how scientists are us...

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In last 15 years, deforestation made outdoors unsafe for millions

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 19, 20211057 Views

The tropics is becoming hotter due to a combination of warming associated with deforestation and climate change—and that can reduce the ability of outdoor workers to perform their jobs safely. Researchers reporting in the journal One Earth on December 17 estimate how many safe working hours people living in the tropics have lost due to local temperature change associated with loss of trees during the past 15 years. “There is a huge disproportionate decrease in safe work hours associated with heat exposure for people in deforested locations versus people in forestated locations just over the past 15 or 20 years,” says first author Luke Parsons, a climate researcher at Duke University. “There is a small amount of climate change that has happened over the same 15-year period, but the incr...

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Warming temperatures threaten Greece’s prized olive oil

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 16, 2021492 Views

Months before the harvest began in November, Greek olive oil farmer Michalis Antonopoulos knew it would not be a good year. First, his trees did not fully blossom because last winter was not cold and wet enough. In the spring, temperatures soared to 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), damaging the flowers that were to grow into olives. Then the summer brought the worst heat wave in decades, drying up the olives and setting off wildfires that torched hundreds of thousands of trees. Standing in his grove in Kalamata, Greece's best-known olive producing region, among trees that are hundreds of years old, Antonopoulos pointed to the results: half empty branches, with small or shriveled olives, or rotting, attacked by a fruit fly. "We're witnessing phenomena and problems th...

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Was US tornado outbreak related to climate change?

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 12, 2021451 Views

Tornadoes ripped through over five US stated on Friday, killing dozens. Here's a look at what's known about Friday's tornado outbreak and the role of climate change in such weather events The calendar said December but the warm moist air screamed of springtime. Add an eastbound storm front guided by a La Nina weather pattern into that mismatch and it spawned tornadoes that killed dozens over five US states. Destroyed homes and debris are seen in a heavily damaged neighborhood at dawn after tornadoes ripped through several U.S. states in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, U.S., December 12, 2021. REUTERS/Jon Cherry At least 100 people were feared dead in Kentucky after a swarm of tornadoes tore a 200-mile path through the U.S. Midwest and South, demolishing homes, levelling businesses and ...

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Coral reefs off east Africa could die out in 50 years

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 8, 2021771 Views

A new study found warming temperatures to be the main driver Coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean are at risk of extinction by 2070 due to warming temperatures and overfishing, according to a new study. A roughly 12,000 sq km expanse of coral reefs stretching down the eastern coastline of Africa and around Madagascar is facing ecosystem collapse, threatening a range of species and the livelihoods of over a million people who work in the fishing and tourism industries. These reefs make up around 5% of the planet's total coral reef area. "When an ecosystem collapses, we might still see individual fish or corals but the whole system is no longer effective in supporting either marine biodiversity or communities who are dependent on it," said David Obura, a Kenyan marine ecolog...

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Killer Whales lingering in newly melted Arctic Ocean

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 4, 20211344 Views1

Killer whales are intelligent, adaptive predators, often teaming up to take down larger prey. Continuous reduction in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is opening areas to increased killer whale dwelling and predation, potentially creating an ecological imbalance. During the 181st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, held from Nov. 29-Dec. 3, Brynn Kimber, from the University of Washington, discussed how killer whales have spent more time than previously recorded in the Arctic, following the decrease in sea ice. Killer whales will often travel to different areas to target varieties of prey. In a study including eight years of passive acoustic data, Kimber and their team monitored killer whale movements using acoustic tools, finding killer whales are spending more time than pr...