Climate change may be playing a role in extending the Alaskan cruise season, potentially opening up new revenue opportunities for the industry, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Chief Executive Officer Frank Del Rio said on Thursday. While climate change has warmed Alaska at more than twice the global rate, harming its fisheries and increasing the rate of wildfires, some parts of the state’s tourism have somewhat benefited from the extension of warm-weather weeks during the year. Alaskan sailings, which typically begin in mid-May and last until mid-September, are now starting as early as April and going on till October, Del Rio said during an investor day presentation, adding the company was investing more in new cruises and docks around America’s biggest state. “Alaska has not ...
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Some estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Austrian engineering company ENVEO, identified distinct, seasonal movements in the flow of land-based ice draining into George VI Ice Shelf – a floating platform of ice roughly the size of Wales – on the Antarctic Peninsula. Riley Glacier, Palmer Land, Antarctica. Photo: Ian Willis Using imagery from the Copernicus/European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, the researchers found that the glaciers feeding the ice shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer. This is the first time that such seasonal cycles have been detected on la...
Read MoreWhen Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s Gulf Coast, it washed out the bottom level of David Muench’s home on the barrier island of Sanibel along with several cars, a Harley-Davidson and a boat. His parents’ house was among those destroyed by the storm that killed at least two people there, and the lone bridge to the crescent-shaped island collapsed, cutting off access by car to the mainland for its 6,300 residents. Hurricane Ian underscores the vulnerability of the nation’s barrier islands and the increasing costs of people living on the thin strips of land that parallel the coast. As hurricanes become more destructive, experts question whether such exposed communities can keep rebuilding in the face of climate change. In this aerial photo made in a flight provided by mediccorps.org,...
Read MoreWhen and if an island nation fully submerges due to rising seas, what happens to the nationalities of its citizens? This and other related questions are being considered by island nations advocating for changes to international law as climate change threatens their existence. “Climate change induced sea level rise is a defining issue for many Pacific Island states and like most climate change issues, Pacific Island states have been at the forefront of challenging international law to develop in a way which is equitable and just,” said Fleur Ramsay, head of litigation and climate lead of the Pasifika Program at the Australia-based Environmental Defenders Office. Eseta Vusamu sits near the water Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in the village of Faleasiu on the island of Upolu in Samoa. (...
Read MoreLocated at the tip of South America, where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet, Cape Horn in Chile is the closest land mass to Antarctica and home to a unique ecosystem that scientists say is a natural laboratory to study climate change. Ricardo Rozzi, director of the almost-completed Cape Horn International Center (CHIC), said the area has at least 10 features - including the world's southernmost forest - which make the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve ideal to monitor plant and animal life on a warming planet. A boat travels along Beagle channel, Cabo de Hornos area, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region, in Puerto Williams town, Chile, September 24, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado "in the north are coming south, but what happens to the ones here in the south? Do they vanish? Do they...
Read MoreSwiss glaciers have recorded their worst melt rate since records began more than a century ago, losing 6% of their remaining volume this year or nearly double the previous record of 2003, monitoring body GLAMOS said on Wednesday. The melt was so extreme this year that bare rock that had remained buried for millenia re-emerged at one site while bodies and even a plane lost elsewhere in the Alps decades ago were recovered. Other small glaciers all but vanished. FILE PHOTO: Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler stand on a border moraine of the Pers Glacier near the Alpine resort of Pontresina, Switzerland July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann "We knew with climate scenarios that this situation would come, at least somewhere in the future," Matthias Huss, he...
Read MoreUnusual forests on stilts mitigate climate change, Mexican research shows Researchers have identified a new reason to protect mangrove forests: they’ve been quietly keeping carbon out of Earth’s atmosphere for the past 5,000 years. Mangroves thrive in conditions most plants cannot tolerate, like salty coastal waters. Some species have air-conducting, vertical roots that act like snorkels when tides are high, giving the appearance of trees floating on stilts. A UC Riverside and UC San Diego-led research team set out to understand how marine mangroves off the coast of La Paz, Mexico, absorb and release elements like nitrogen and carbon, processes called biogeochemical cycling. UCSD coastal ecologist Matthew Costa entering mangrove forest in Mexico. Photo credit: Ramiro Arcos Agu...
Read MoreEven if the world somehow manages to limit future warming to the strictest international temperature goal, four Earth-changing climate “tipping points” are still likely to be triggered with a lot more looming as the planet heats more after that, a new study said. An international team of scientists looked at 16 climate tipping points — when a warming side effect is irreversible, self-perpetuating and major — and calculated rough temperature thresholds at which they are triggered. None of them are considered likely at current temperatures, though a few are possible. But with only a few more tenths of a degree of warming from now, at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times, four move into the likely range, according to a study in Thursday’s journal...
Read MoreThe eastern Mediterranean and Middle East are warming almost twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures projected to rise up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century if no action is taken to reverse the trend, a new report says. The region will experience “unprecedented” heat waves, more severe and longer-lasting droughts and dust storms and rainfall shortages that will “compromise water and food security” for the region’s 400 million people, according to a summary of the report released Tuesday. The eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are more susceptible to warming trends because of their unique natural characteristics, like large desert expanses and lower water levels, the study said. FILE PHOTO: A couple walk at the salt lake dur...
Read MoreA helicopter herds thousands of impalas into an enclosure. A crane hoists sedated upside-down elephants into trailers. Hordes of rangers drive other animals into metal cages and a convoy of trucks starts a journey of about 700 kilometers (435 miles) to take the animals to their new home. Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country’s north to rescue them from drought, as the ravages of climate change replace poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife. About 400 elephants, 2,000 impalas, 70 giraffes, 50 buffaloes, 50 wildebeest, 50 zebras, 50 elands, 10 lions and a pack of 10 wild dogs are among the animals being moved from Zimbabwe’s Save Valley Conservancy to three conservancies in the north — Sapi, Matusadonha and Chizari...
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