climate change – Page 17 – आवारा मुसाफिर

Southern China hit by severe rains, floods as ‘dragon boat water’ peaks

June 21, 2022602 Views

Vast tracts of southern China were pounded by severe storms, triggering flooding in cities and mudslides in rural areas, as the first bout of summer rains reached the peak of their power. Streets turned to swollen rivers as cars and single-storey houses were swept away in at least two counties in Guizhou province in southwestern China on Saturday, according to videos circulating on Chinese social media. The rainfall in some areas has been the heaviest in 60 years. In neighbouring autonomous region Guangxi, five villagers were killed when a house built of wood gave way after being lashed by torrential rains, state media said on Saturday. Rescue workers help at the site where a wooden building collapsed following heavy rainfall in Gudu village, Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, Guan...

जलवायु परिवर्तनफ्रांस

Scientists probe link between ‘snow blood’ and climate change

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 21, 2022792 Views

Standing on a snowy mountainside about 2,500 metres above sea level, Eric Marechal holds up a crimson test-tube. Inside is an algae sample known as "snow blood," a phenomenon that accelerates Alpine thaw and that scientists worry is spreading. "These algae are green. But when it's in the snow, it accumulates a little pigment like sunscreen to protect itself," said Marechal, research director at Grenoble's Scientific Research National Center, who was collecting laboratory samples on Le Brevent mountain with teammates. Alberto Amato, Ludovic Gielly and Jade Ezzedine of the Cell and Plant Physiology Laboratory of Grenoble take samples of the Sanguina nivaloides algae, also known as "snow blood" and which presence accelerates snowmelt at the Brevent in Chamonix, France, June 14, 2022. R...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

Isolated Greenland polar bear population adapts to climate change

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 18, 2022311 Views

An isolated population of polar bears in Greenland has made a clever adaptation to the decline in the sea ice they depend upon as a platform for hunting seals, offering a ray of hope for this species in at least some locales in the warming Arctic. This population of several hundred bears, inhabiting part of Greenland's southeast coast on the Denmark Strait, has survived with only abbreviated access to ice formed from frozen seawater by hunting instead from chunks of freshwater ice breaking off from the huge Greenland Ice Sheet, researchers said on Thursday. Three adult polar bears in southeast Greenland using the sea ice during the limited time when it is available in this region in this handout photograph taken in April 2015. Kristin Laidre/University of Washington/Handout via REUT...

चिलीजलवायु परिवर्तन

Now a Chilean lake turns to desert

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 14, 2022467 Views

Locals beg God for water, sounding climate change alarm The Penuelas reservoir in central Chile was until twenty years ago the main source of water for the city of Valparaiso, holding enough water for 38,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Water for only two pools now remains. A huge expanse of dried and cracked earth that was once the lake bed is littered with fish skeletons and desperate animals searching for water. A general view of the former Penuelas lake in Valparaiso, Chile April 19, 2022. A huge expanse of dried and cracked earth that was once the lake bed is littered with fish skeletons and desperate animals searching for water. Picture taken with drone. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado Amid an historic 13-year drought, rainfall levels have slumped in this South American nation tha...

इराकजलवायु परिवर्तन

Iraq’s ‘pearl of the south’ Lake Sawa dry amid water crisis

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 13, 2022981 Views

Hussam al-Aqouli remembers the exact spot along southern Iraq’s Lake Sawa where his two daughters once dipped their feet into clear waters. Now he stands there two years on and the barren earth cracks beneath him. This year, for the first time in its centuries-long history, the lake dried up. A combination of mismanagement by local investors, government neglect and climate change has ground down its azure shores to chunks of salt. Lake Sawa is only the latest casualty in this broad country-wide struggle with water shortages that experts say is induced by climate change, including record low rainfall and back-to-back drought. The stress on water resources is driving up competition for the precious resource among businessmen, farmers and herders, with the poorest Iraqis counting among...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

Ultrafine dust might cause weather extremes

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 1, 2022988 Views

KIT researchers prove global increase of ultrafine particles from exhaust gases of fossil fuels and warn of major weather effects Strong precipitation or extreme drought – the frequency of extreme weather events is increasing worldwide. Existing climate models, however, do not adequately show their dynamics. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) assume that ultrafine particles in the atmosphere have a significant impact on cloud physics and, hence, on weather. Their aircraft measurements confirm an increase in particle number emissions in spite of a decreasing coarse fine dust concentration and blame it to the combustion of fossil fuels in exhaust gas cleaning systems. Junkermann piloted KIT’s ultralight aircraft D-MIFU, the smallest manned research aircraft in the ...

अफ्रीकाखबरनामा

Security concerns, lack of support stall Africa’s Green Wall

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May 27, 2022955 Views

A series of complex challenges, including a lack of funding and political will as well as rising insecurity linked to extremist groups al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Burkina Faso, are obstructing progress on Africa’s Great Green Wall, according to experts involved in the initiative. There have been some modest gains for the project, which plans to build an 8000-kilometer (4970-mile) long forest through 11 nations across the width of Africa to hold back the ever-growing Sahara Desert and fend off climate change impacts, but many involved with the plan are calling for renewed momentum to combat both insecurity and environmental decline. Just 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of land has been afforested since work on the Green Wall began 15 years ago — a mere 4% of the program’...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

Oceans are hotter, higher and more acidic, climate report warns

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 18, 2022248 Views

The world's oceans grew to their warmest and most acidic levels on record last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday, as United Nations officials warned that war in Ukraine threatened global climate commitments. Oceans saw the most striking extremes as the WMO detailed a range of turmoil wrought by climate change in its annual "State of the Global Climate" report. It said melting ice sheets had helped push sea levels to new heights in 2021. FILE PHOTO: Dead fish appear on the beaches of La Manga del Mar Menor, Murcia, Spain, August 21, 2021. REUTERS/Eva Manez "Our climate is changing before our eyes. The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a st...

जलवायु परिवर्तनतुवालु

Tuvalu, sinking in the Pacific, fears becoming a superpower ‘pawn’

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May 14, 2022310 Views

Tuvalu fears that climate change, an existential threat to the Pacific nation, is being forgotten and it worries that fellow island nations could become "pawns" in a global competition between China and the United States, its foreign minister said. Simon Kofe told Reuters the superpower competition was a concern, distracting attention from climate change, the priority for Pacific islands endangered by rising sea levels. FILE PHOTO: Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simon Kofe gives a COP26 statement while standing in the ocean in this handout picture taken in Funafuti, Tuvalu, November 8, 2021. "It is important that the Pacific handles these issues carefully," he said in an interview on Thursday. "The last thing we want is that countries in the Pacific are used against each other or used...

जलवायु परिवर्तन

World could see 1.5C of warming in next five years, WMO reports

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 10, 2022388 Views

The world faces a 50% chance of warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, if only briefly, by 2026, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday. That does not mean the world would be crossing the long-term warming threshold of 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which scientists have set as the ceiling for avoiding catastrophic climate change. But a year of warming at 1.5C could offer a taste of what crossing that long-term threshold would be like. "We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, referring to climate accords adopted in 2015. The likelihood of exceeding 1.5C for a short period has been rising since 2015, with scientists in 2020 estimatin...