climate change – Page 16 – आवारा मुसाफिर

Climate change and vanishing islands threaten brown pelicans

July 28, 2022358 Views

Sliding off the side of her small boat, seabird biologist Bonnie Slaton wades through waist-high water, brown pelicans soaring overhead, until she reaches the shores of Raccoon Island. During seabird breeding season, the place is a raucous symphony of noise and motion — and one of the few remaining refuges for the iconic pelicans. The crescent-shaped island is the final sliver of land separating Louisiana from the Gulf of Mexico — a natural speed bump against storms that roll in from the sea. An hour’s boat ride from the mainland, the barrier island’s remoteness allows birds to nest on mangroves and sandy beaches a safe distance from most predators. Raccoon Island, a Gulf of Mexico barrier island that is a nesting ground for brown pelicans, terns, seagulls and other birds, is see...

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Glaciers vanishing at record rate in Alps following heatwaves

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July 26, 2022594 Views

From the way 45-year-old Swiss glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer bounds over icy crevasses, you would never guess he was carrying 10 kg of steel equipment needed to chart the decline of Switzerland's glaciers. Normally, he heads down this path on the massive Morteratsch Glacier in late September, the end of the summer melt season in the Alps. But exceptionally high ice loss this year has brought him to this 15-square-kilometer (5.8-square-mile) amphitheatre of ice two months early for emergency maintenance work. The measuring poles he uses to track changes in the depth of the pack are at risk of dislodging entirely as the ice melts away and he needs to drill new holes. Glaciologist Andreas Linsbauer and assistant Andrea Millhaeusler stand on a border moraine of the Pers Glacier near...

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Mideast nations wake up to damage from climate change

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July 26, 2022554 Views

Temperatures in the Middle East have risen far faster than the world’s average in the past three decades. Precipitation has been decreasing, and experts predict droughts will come with greater frequency and severity. The Middle East is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the impact of climate change — and already the effects are being seen. In Iraq, intensified sandstorms have repeatedly smothered cities this year, shutting down commerce and sending thousands to hospitals. Rising soil salinity in Egypt’s Nile Delta is eating away at crucial farmland. In Afghanistan, drought has helped fuel the migration of young people from their villages, searching for jobs. In recent weeks, temperatures in some parts of the region have topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). ...

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Polar bears scavenge on garbage to cope with climate change

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July 20, 2022270 Views

Hungry polar bears are turning to garbage dumps to fill their stomachs as their icy habitat disappears. On Wednesday, a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists warned that trash poses an emerging threat to already-vulnerable polar bear populations as the animals become more reliant on landfills near northern communities. This is leading to deadly conflicts with people, the report published in the journal Oryx said. Polar bears scavenge for food at a dump in Churchill, Canada, in this handout image dated circa 2003. In 2005, the community permanently closed its dump and now stores garbage in a secure facility. Dan Guravich/Polar Bears International/Handout via REUTERS "Bears and garbage are a bad association," said co-author Andrew Derocher, a biologist at the University of Alberta. ...

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Scorching temperatures blanket Europe

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July 16, 2022235 Views

Fires rage in France and Spain, UK gets first ever red ‘extreme heat’ warning Wildfires raged in southwestern France and Spain on Saturday, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes as blistering summer temperatures put authorities on alert in parts of Europe. More than 12,200 people had been evacuated from France's Gironde region by Saturday morning as more than 1,000 firefighters battled to bring the flames under control, regional authorities said in a statement. A view of trees burning amid a wildfire near Landiras, France, July 13, 2022 in this picture obtained from the fire brigade of the Gironde region (SDIS 33). SDIS 33/Handout via REUTERS "We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it is not stabilised," Vincent Ferrier, deputy prefect fo...

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Cuban sea turtles can’t escape climate change, even on these far-flung beaches

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July 13, 2022871 Views

On Cuba's far-flung Guanahacabibes peninsula, park guard Roberto Varela watches as a green sea turtle lumbers ashore and a ritual as old as the dinosaurs unfolds. "To see them lay their eggs and to know their nests will be protected, you get the sense you are making a difference," said Varela, who helps oversee turtle research in a national park that spans much of the peninsula. So far, efforts by Varela and fellow researchers at the park and University of Havana have been a success. Turtle nesting here, once threatened by poaching, has stabilized and increased in some cases, published studies show, even as it has fallen off elsewhere in the tropics. A green sea turtle returns to the sea after laying eggs on the beach in Guanahacabibes Peninsula, Cuba, June 28, 2022. REUTERS/Alex...

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Arctic temperatures are increasing four times faster than global warming

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July 6, 2022570 Views

Analysis of observed temperatures finds two jumps over the past 50 years that were missed by most climate models A new analysis of observed temperatures shows the Arctic is heating up more than four times faster than the rate of global warming. The trend has stepped upward steeply twice in the last 50 years, a finding missed by all but four of 39 climate models. “Thirty years is considered the minimum to represent climate change,” said Petr Chylek, a physicist and climate researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study in Geophysical Research Letters. “We decreased the time interval to 21 years. At that smaller time scale and, contrary to previous investigations that found the Arctic amplification index increases in a smooth way, we observed two distinct st...

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Top predators could ‘trap’ themselves trying to adapt to climate change, study shows

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June 29, 2022191 Views

As climate change alters environments across the globe, scientists have discovered that in response, many species are shifting the timing of major life events, such as reproduction. With an earlier spring thaw, for example, some flowers bloom sooner. But scientists don’t know whether making these significant changes in life history will ultimately help a species survive or lead to bigger problems. A study published the week of June 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows for the first time that a species of large carnivore has made a major change to its life history in response to a changing climate — and may be worse off for it. An African wild dog mother and pup. Photo: Bobby-Jo Vial A team led by researchers at the University of Washington, in collabora...

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Climate change is driving 2022 extreme heat and flooding

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June 28, 2022696 Views

Extreme weather events – from scorching heatwaves to unusually heavy downpours – have caused widespread upheaval across the globe this year, with thousands of people killed and millions more displaced. In the last three months, monsoon rains unleashed disastrous flooding in Bangladesh, and brutal heatwaves seared parts of South Asia and Europe. Meanwhile, prolonged drought has left millions on the brink of famine in East Africa. Much of this, scientists say, is what's expected from climate change. Trees burn as flames and smoke engulf the top of a hill in a forest fire in Artazu, northern Spain in the early hours of Sunday, June 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Miguel Oses) On Tuesday, a team of climate scientists published a study in the journal Environmental Research: Climate. The resear...

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Climate change is turning more of Central Asia into desert

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June 22, 2022314 Views

The rapid expansion will have significant impacts on ecosystems and the people and animals who rely on them As global temperatures rise, desert climates have spread north by up to 100 kilometres in parts of Central Asia since the 1980s, a climate assessment reveals1. The study, published on 27 May in Geophysical Research Letters, also found that over the past 35 years, temperatures have increased across all of Central Asia, which includes parts of China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In the same period, mountain regions have become hotter and wetter — which might have accelerated the retreat of some major glaciers. Such changes threaten ecosystems and those who rely on them, says Jeffrey Dukes, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology in St...