Two weeks ago, a powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale rocked Taiwan’s eastern shores, leaving four people dead and over 700 others injured.
The seismic activity occurred between 5:08 pm and 5:17 pm (local time). (Representational)
Five earthquakes struck Shoufeng Township, Hualien County, in eastern Taiwan on Monday within just 9 minutes, as reported by Central News Agency Focus Taiwan.
The seismic activity occurred between 5:08 pm and 5:17 pm (local time).
“Five #earthquakes struck Shoufeng Township, Hualien County, eastern Taiwan, in 9 minutes between 5:08 p.m. and 5:17 p.m. (UTC+8),” CNA Focus Taiwan posted on X.
Two weeks ago, a powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale rocked Taiwan’s eastern shores, leaving four people dead and over 700 others injured.
“Notable quake, preliminary info: M 6.5 – 11 km NE of Hualien City, Taiwan,” the US Geological Survey (USGS) said in a post on X.
This picture released by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 22, 2024 shows fallen rocks on Suhua highway after a magnitude-5.5 earthquake in Hualien. (AFP)
Taiwan’s Shoufeng Township, Hualien County, was struck with five earthquakes within 9 minutes on Monday, Central News Agency Focus Taiwan reported.
Earlier todat, Taiwan’s capital was shaken by a “strong” earthquake with the Central Weather Administration saying it was a magnitude-5.5 tremor originating in eastern Hualien.
The region was the epicentre of a magnitude-7.4 quake that hit on April 3, causing landslides around the mountainous region that blocked off roads, while buildings in the main Hualien city were badly damaged.
At least 17 were killed in the quake, with the latest body discovered on April 13 in a quarry.
Monday’s quake hit Taiwan at around 5:08 pm local time (0908 GMT) and could be felt in the capital Taipei.
US Geological Survey put it at 5.3 magnitude, with a depth of 8.9 kilometres.
“It felt like one of the strongest quakes or aftershocks since the big one earlier this month,” an AFP staffer said.
Hualien’s fire department said in a short post on its official social media channel that they had dispatched teams to inspect of any disaster from the quake.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and report in a timely manner.”
Taiwan sees frequent quakes as it is located at the junction of two tectonic plates.
The April 3 quake was followed by hundreds of aftershocks, which caused rockfalls around Hualien.
It was the most serious in Taiwan since 1999, when a magnitude-7.6 hit the island.
The death toll then was far higher — with 2,400 people killed in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.
A dry section of the reservoir bed at Embalse La Regadera in the town of Usme in Bogotá, Colombia, on April 8, 2024. Diego Cuevas/Getty Images
There’s a new meme being shared widely this week across social media accounts in Colombia’s capital Bogotá, as the city grapples with a water crisis.
It’s an image of C. Montgomery Burns, the supervillain from the animated series “The Simpsons,” showing up at the door with a bunch of red roses and a heart-shaped chocolate box. Smiling, he says: “I saw your turn of water rationing is different from mine.”
The meme reflects a sense of dark humor among some Bogotànos following the city authority’s announcement Monday that residents would have to ration water as drought, fueled by El Niño, pushes reservoirs toward record lows.
The rationing came into effect Thursday morning. Bogotá and dozens of surrounding towns have been divided into nine different zones with domestic running water cut off for 24 hours in each zone on a rotation that will reset every 10 days. The measures will affect approximately 9 million people.
There are contingency plans to ensure schools and hospitals have a continuous supply, authorities have said.
But, as “The Simpsons” meme suggests, some residents have been left wondering whether they might need to start cozying up to friends across town to access drinking water.
The measures are part of emergency plans introduced by the Colombian government and the city’s mayor after reservoirs reached “historically low” levels.
The Chuza and San Rafael reservoirs, part of the Chingaza System that provides 70% of the city’s drinking water, are at particularly critical positions, according to local authorities.
“Let’s not waste a drop of water in Bogotá at this time,” Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán said in a news conference Monday, adding, “that will help us so that these restrictions can be lifted more quickly or reduced.”
Galán called for “a behavioral change that is sustainable over time and guarantees that water is enough for everyone,” adding that some of the reservoirs are less than 20% capacity compared to historical averages for this time of year.
The San Rafael reservoir on the outskirts of Bogotá, which is a source of drinking water for the city, is at very low levels due to the El Niño climate phenomenon, on April 5, 2024. Ivan Valencia/AP
It’s not unusual for cities in Latin America to face water crises. Bogotá joins Mexico City to its northwest, which could also be on the brink of running out of water, as the combination of climate change, El Niño, geography and rapid urban development put immense strain on its water resources.
But this marks the first time in recent history that Bogotá has been forced to implement water rationing measures.
Perched on a mountain plateau, Bogotá is one of the highest capitals in the world at more than 2,600 meters (8,500 feet) above sea level. To its east, are the peaks of the Andes, to its west is a lush valley through which winds the Magdalena, Colombia’s largest river and a vital source of water.
Moisture from the tropical rainforests along the Magdalena rises up the mountain valleys and clashes with the colder temperatures at the top, generating rain.
As every Bogotàno knows, rain is fairly common in the city, which relies heavily on it for its water needs.
“Most cities around the world depend on aquifers for their water supplies. Bogota is different in that almost all our supply comes from surface waters like reservoirs, which are more susceptible to rain patterns,” said Armando Sarmiento, an ecology professor at Bogotá’s Javeriana University.
It’s this dependence on rain that makes Bogotá particularly vulnerable to drought, Sarmiento told CNN.
Researchers say textbooks today not only cut back on the issue of global warming compared to previous years, but the topic is found further back in books, undermining its urgency and importance
RALEIGH, N.C. — Today’s college textbooks covering life sciences are not as accurate as students consider them to be, finds a new study from North Carolina State University. Their study shows that biology textbooks are slow to keep pace with the current discoveries and state of climate change.
A brief acknowledgment or the emittance of climate change information entirely undermines the severity of the crisis on our warming planet, scientists say. What’s more, a gap in climate change knowledge and could affect how future generations take it seriously. Their paper is published in PLoS One.
“In short, we found biology textbooks are failing to share adequate information about climate change, which is a generation-defining topic in the life sciences,” says Jennifer Landin, corresponding author of the study and an associate professor of biological sciences at NC State, in a university release. “These books are the baseline texts for helping students understand the science of life on Earth, yet they are providing very little information about a phenomenon that is having a profound impact on habitats, ecosystems, agriculture – almost every aspect of life on Earth.”
For example, textbooks published in the 2010s had less information about climate change than in the previous decades. The lack of information goes against the significant strides scientists have taken to understand how climate changes influences ecosystems and the environment.
The current study looked at climate change coverage in 57 college biology textbooks published between 1970 and 2019. The team found the topic has been covered, but at varying lengths across the five decades. Before the 1990s, textbooks spent less than 10 sentences talking about climate change. During the 1990s, the length rose from 10 to 30 sentences. In the early 2000s, there were 52 sentences on the topic which aligns with the expanded research efforts into understanding the impact of climate change. However, the amount of climate coverage in textbooks dropped in the 2010s. It went from a median of 52 to 45 sentences.
“One of the most troubling findings was that textbooks are devoting substantially less space to addressing climate solutions now than they did in the 1990s – even as they focus more on the effects of climate change,” explains Landin. “That suggests to students that nothing can be done, which is both wildly misleading and contributes to a sense of fatalism regarding climate change.”
A new study finds biology textbooks have done a poor job of incorporating material related to climate change. For example, the study found that most textbooks published in the 2010s included less information about climate change than they did in the previous decade – despite significant advances in our understanding of how climate change is influencing ecosystems and the environment. Textbooks are also devoting substantially less space to addressing climate solutions now than they did in the 1990s. (Credit: Jennifer Landin, NC State University)
In addition to length, the nature of the content has also shifted over time. In the 1990s, about 15% of the sentences involved actionable solutions to climate change. More recent decades, however, have made up only 3% of climate content. Another noticeable change is the position of climate change sections with the topic being moved toward the back of the textbook.
Scientists at the University of Warwick are painting an ominous picture of what the end of the planet might actually look like. According to their research, our solar system’s future could be a catastrophic plunge into the grasp of a white dwarf star, leading to its ultimate disintegration. This grim prognosis emerges from a detailed study into the fate of planetary systems ensnared by the intense gravitational pull of white dwarfs, the dense remnants of stars that have burned through their nuclear reserves.
White dwarfs are the remnants of stars that have exhausted their fuel, offering valuable insights into various aspects of stellar evolution. The researchers investigated the fate of these planetary bodies by analyzing transits, which are dips in the brightness of stars caused by objects passing in front of them. Their paper is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).
Unlike the predictable transits caused by orbiting planets, the transits caused by debris around white dwarfs are oddly shaped, chaotic, and disorderly, suggesting that these bodies undergo an extremely destructive process. “Previous research had shown that when asteroids, moons and planets get close to white dwarfs, the huge gravity of these stars rips these small planetary bodies into smaller and smaller pieces,” Dr Amornrat Aungwerojwit of Naresuan University, who led the study, explained in a media release.
As these fragments collide with each other, they eventually grind into dust, which falls into the white dwarf. This process allows researchers to determine the composition of the original planetary bodies. To gain further insight into how these bodies are disrupted, the scientists analyzed changes in the brightness of three white dwarfs over 17 years, each exhibiting distinct behaviors.
Clumps of debris from a disrupted planetesimal are irregularly spaced on an long and eccentric orbit around the white dwarf. Individual clouds of rubble intermittently pass in front of the white dwarf, blocking some of its light. Because of the various sizes of the fragments in these clumps, the brightness of the white dwarf flickers in a chaotic way. (Credit: Dr Mark Garlick/The University of Warwick)
“The simple fact that we can detect the debris of asteroids, maybe moons or even planets whizzing around a white dwarf every couple of hours is quite mind-blowing, but our study shows that the behavior of these systems can evolve rapidly, in a matter of a few years,” said Boris Gaensicke, a professor from Warwick’s Department of Physics.
One white dwarf, ZTF J0328−1219, appeared stable in recent years but showed evidence of a major catastrophic event around 2010. Another star, ZTF J0923+4236, dimmed irregularly every few months and exhibited chaotic variability on timescales of minutes during fainter states before brightening again. The third white dwarf, WD 1145+017, initially behaved close to theoretical predictions but surprisingly showed no transits in the latest study.
“The system is, overall, very gently getting brighter, as the dust produced by catastrophic collisions around 2015 disperses,” added Gaensicke. “The unpredictable nature of these transits can drive astronomers crazy – one minute they are there, the next they are gone. And this points to the chaotic environment they are in.”
Monday’s total solar eclipse passed over the homes of 32 million people in the US – and plenty more travelled miles to get the best view of the event.
People using protective glasses to watch the eclipse in Mazatlan, Mexico. Pic: Reuters/Henry Romero
Millions of people were plunged into darkness during the daytime on Monday as a total solar eclipse made its way across the United States and eastern Canada, after starting in Mexico.
The highly-anticipated eclipse saw the Earth, the sun and the moon perfectly aligned, resulting in ‘totality’ – the moment when the face of the sun is completely blocked by the moon.
The Mexican beach town of Mazatlan was the first place to witness the cosmic event at around 11.15am local time (7.15pm UK time), and cheers broke out on the promenade as it began.
Hundreds of people wearing eclipse glasses had gathered in a beachside park and passed the time by listening to a youth orchestra playing Star Wars songs as images of Princess Leia were projected on a big screen.
Those viewing the phenomenon could see the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, shining bright around the edge of the moon as it was blocked.
The moon covering the sun during the total eclipse
For onlookers, the total eclipse lasted up to four minutes and 28 seconds.
As the sun was covered by the moon, darkness descended and there was also a noticeable temperature drop.
The eclipse moved through multiple US states and major cities – including Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo and New York – before making its way to eastern Canada.
It took just one hour and 40 minutes for the eclipse to race along its 4,000-mile course and an early afternoon chill swept across Texas as it began its journey across the United States.
Crowds refuse to let bad weather dampen the mood
The eclipse was slightly obscured by clouds in some areas, but crowds didn’t let the weather ruin the experience.
Reacting to the moment of totality in Dallas, one onlooker told Sky News: “It’s amazing, you can see the stars around it. It’s incredible.”
Clouds partially covered the eclipse in Eagle Pass, Texas. Pic: Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via AP
In Georgetown, Texas, the skies cleared just in time to give spectators a clear view.
“We are really lucky,” said Susan Robertson. “Even with the clouds it is kind of nice because when it clears up it is like ‘wow’.”
The weather was kinder in Vermont, New England, where one dedicated eclipse watcher told US correspondent Mark Stone “you couldn’t ask for nicer skies”.
John, who was witnessing his eighth eclipse, said: “I was planning to go to Texas a week ago but changed my mind.
“For me, personally, this [eclipse] is better [than the others]. I wasn’t trying to photograph it, I was just enjoying the moment.”
Monday’s event was something of an anomaly as total eclipses are only meant to happen once every 375 years in any one place in the world – yet people in Illinois are seeing one for the second time in seven years.
Eclipse spectators staked out their spots across three countries Sunday, fervently hoping for clear skies despite forecasts calling for clouds along most of the sun-vanishing route.
North America won’t see another coast-to-coast total solar eclipse for 21 years, prompting the weekend’s worry and mad rush.
Monday’s extravaganza stretches from Mexico’s Pacific beaches to Canada’s rugged Atlantic shores, with 15 U.S. states in between.
“I have arrived in the path of totality!” Ian Kluft announced Sunday afternoon after pulling into Mesquite from Portland, Oregon, a 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) drive.
A total eclipse happens when the moon lines up perfectly between Earth and the sun, blotting out the sunlight. That means a little over four minutes of daytime darkness east of Dallas in Mesquite, where locals like Jorge Martinez have the day off. The land surveyor plans to “witness history” from home with his wife and their 3-year-old daughter, Nati.
“Hopefully, she’ll remember. She’s excited, too,” he said following breakfast at Dos Panchas Mexican Restaurant.
Inside the jammed restaurant, manager Adrian Martinez figured on staying open Monday.
“Wish it was going to be sunny like today,” he said. “But cloudiness? Hopefully, it still looks pretty good.”
Near Ennis, Texas, to the south, the Range Vintage Trailer Resort was also packed, selling out of spots more than a year ago.
“I booked it instantly, then I told my wife, ‘We’re going to Texas,’” Gotham, England’s Chris Lomas said from the trailer resort Sunday. Even if clouds obscure the covered-up sun, “it will still go dark. It’s just about sharing the experience with other people,” he added.
In Cleveland, the eclipse persuaded women’s Final Four fans Matt and Sheila Powell to stick around an extra day after Sunday’s game. But they were debating whether to begin their drive home to Missouri Valley, Iowa, early Monday in search of clearer skies along the eclipse’s path. “We’re trying to be flexible,” Powell said.
Even the eclipse professionals were up in the air.
Eclipse mapmaker Michael Zeiler had a perfect record ahead of Monday, seeing 11 out of 11 total solar eclipses after successfully relocating three of those times at the last minute for better weather.
“We are the complete opposite of tornado chasers, always seeking clear skies,” Zeiler said in an email over the weekend. This time, though, he was staying put in Fredericksburg, Texas, with his family, 10 of them altogether, and holding onto “a considerable ray of hope.”
Farther north, in Buffalo, New York, Jeff Sherman flew in from Somerville, Massachusetts, to catch his second total solar eclipse. After seeing the U.S. coast-to-coast eclipse in 2017, “now I have to see any one that’s nearby, he said.
Kluft also enjoyed clear skies for the 2017 eclipse, in Oregon, and rolled into Mesquite wearing the T-shirt from that big event. As for Monday’s cloudy forecast across Texas, “at least I’ll be around people who are like-minded.”
Dicey weather was also predicted almost all the way to Lake Erie, despite Sunday’s gorgeous weather. The only places promised clear skies along Monday’s narrow 115-mile-wide (185-kilometer-wide) corridor of totality were New England and Canada.
A severe G4 geomagnetic storm hit Earth on Sunday, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) alert. In its message, the agency added that a major disturbance in the planet’s magnetic field ‘often varying intensity between lower levels and severe storm conditions over the course of the event’ are expected.
Severe G4 Geomagnetic Storm Is Hitting Earth
A severe G4 geomagnetic storm hit Earth on Sunday, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) alert. In its message, the agency added that a major disturbance in the planet’s magnetic field ‘often varying intensity between lower levels and severe storm conditions over the course of the event’ are expected.
The NOAA further added that people should not panic. They ‘should not anticipate adverse impacts and no action is necessary, but they should stay properly informed of storm progression by visiting our webpage’. The G4 geomagnetic storm can also have technology effects.
“Infrastructure operators have been notified to take action to mitigate any possible impacts. Possible increased and more frequent voltage control problems – normally mitigable. Increased possibility of anomalies or effects to satellite operations. More frequent and longer periods of GPS degradation possible,” the NOAA alert on Sunday stated.
A space weather handle on X, platform formerly known as Twitter, said that the severe G4 geomagnetic storm (Kp8) hit Earth with the threshold reached at 16:28 UTC. Another one added that the the storm is fast-moving and hit more than 12 hours earlier than anticipated.
Geomagnetic storms have the potential to produce a display of the aurora borealis over the North Hemisphere. NOAA had earlier said that satellites detected at least one flare and coronal mass ejection that was emitted from the Sun on Friday.
Fountains of orange lava are shooting high into the sky, leaving a bright glow on the horizon – as a geophysicist says this latest eruption is the “most powerful so far”.
A volcano in Iceland has erupted for the fourth time since December after previous eruptions destroyed roads and forced a town to evacuate.
Livestreams from the area showed fountains of molten rock soaring into the night sky from fissures in the ground.
Authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula, just south of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik.
The volcano is erupting for the fourth time since December. Pic: Iceland Civil Defense via AP
The Icelandic Meteorological Office confirmed a volcanic eruption started between Stora Skogfell and Hagafell on Saturday evening.
There were no reported flight disruptions on Saturday night, with the website of Reykjavik’s nearby Keflavik Airport showing it remained open both for departures and arrivals.
The eruption has created a vast lava flow outside the town of Grindavik. Pic: AP/Marco di Marco
In and around the town of Grindavik, where some of the town’s 4,000 residents had returned following earlier outbreaks, police have declared a state of emergency.
Evacuations were taking place, public broadcaster RUV said.
Sky correspondent Alex Crawford was among hundreds of holidaymakers evacuated from the popular Blue Lagoon spa, which lies a short distance northwest of the volcano site.
“We’ve seen a lot of police cars, ambulance cars, and a lot of people trying to get out of the area,” Crawford said, as she was being evacuated from her hotel by bus.
“Everyone has been quite calm and it’s all been quite orderly, they’ve been through this quite a lot recently.
“We’re all being taken to a safer place inland in Reykjavik.”
The eruption site is around two miles northeast of Grindavik. Pic: Reuters
Grindavik, about 30 miles southwest of Reykjavik, was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the ground north of the town.
The volcano erupted on 18 December, sending lava flowing away from Grindavik.
A second eruption on 14 January sent lava toward the town. Defensive walls that had been bolstered after the first eruption stopped some of the flow but several houses were burned to the ground.
Both eruptions lasted only a matter of days.
A third eruption on 8 February cut off district heating to more than 20,000 people as lava flows destroyed roads and pipelines, but it petered out within hours.
Geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson was quoted by RUV as saying this latest eruption is the most powerful so far.
The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe.
The United Nations Environment Assembly this week considered a resolution on solar radiation modification, which refers to controversial technologies intended to mask the heating effect of greenhouse gases by reflecting some sunlight back to space.
Proponents argue the technologies will limit the effects of climate change. In reality, this type of “geoengineering” risks further destabilizing an already deeply disturbed climate system. What’s more, its full impacts cannot be known until after deployment.
Photo by Aditya Kumar from Pexels
The draft resolution initially called for the convening of an expert group to examine the benefits and risks of solar radiation modification. The motion was withdrawn on Thursday after no consensus could be reached on the controversial topic.
A notable development was a call from some Global South countries for “non-use” of solar radiation modification. We strongly support this position. Human-caused climate change is already one planetary-scale experiment too many – we don’t need another.
A risky business
In some circles, solar geoengineering is gaining prominence as a response to the climate crisis. However, research has consistently identified potential risks posed by the technologies such as:
unpredictable effects on climate and weather patterns
biodiversity loss, especially if use of the technology was halted abruptly
undermining food security by, for example, reducing light and increasing salinity on land
the infringement of human rights across generations – including, but not limited to, passing on huge risks to generations that will come after us.
Here, we discuss several examples of solar radiation modification which exemplify the threats posed by these technologies. These are also depicted in the graphic below.
A load of hot air
In April 2022, an American startup company released two weather balloons into the air from Mexico. The experiment was conducted without approval from Mexican authorities.
The intent was to cool the atmosphere by deflecting sunlight. The resulting reduction in warming would be sold for profit as “cooling credits” to those wanting to offset greenhouse gas pollution.
Appreciably cooling the climate would, in reality, require injecting millions of metric tons of aerosols into the stratosphere, using a purpose-built fleet of high-altitude aircraft. Such an undertaking would alter global wind and rainfall patterns, leading to more drought and cyclones, exacerbating acid rainfall and slowing ozone recovery.
Once started, this stratospheric aerosol injection would need to be carried out continually for at least a century to achieve the desired cooling effect. Stopping prematurely would lead to an unprecedented rise in global temperatures far outpacing extreme climate change scenarios.
Heads in the clouds
Another solar geoengineering technology, known as marine cloud brightening, seeks to make low-lying clouds more reflective by spraying microscopic seawater droplets into the air. Since 2017, trials have been underway on the Great Barrier Reef.
The project is tiny in scale, and involves pumping seawater onto a boat and spraying it from nozzles towards the sky. The project leader says the mist-generating machine would need to be scaled up by a factor of ten, to about 3,000 nozzles, to brighten nearby clouds by 30%.
After years of trials, the project has not yet produced peer-reviewed empirical evidence that cloud brightening could reduce sea surface temperatures or protect corals from bleaching.
The Great Barrier Reef is the size of Italy. Scaling up attempts at cloud brightening would require up to 1,000 machines on boats, all pumping and spraying vast amounts of seawater for months during summer. Even if it worked, the operation is hardly, as its proponents claim, “environmentally benign”.
The technology’s effects remain unclear. For the Great Barrier Reef, less sunlight and lower temperatures could alter water movement and mixing, harming marine life. Marine life may also be killed by pumps or negatively affected by the additional noise pollution. And on land, marine cloud brightening may lead to altered rainfall patterns and increased salinity, damaging agriculture.
The spread of the hot smoking flow was captured in extraordinary live footage from the scene.
An enormous fiery flow of lava is engulfing a road in Iceland, after the third volcanic eruption in the same area in recent months.
Iceland’s Meteorological Office has said the Sylingarfell volcano, near Grindavik, is erupting again.
The spread of the hot smoking flow was captured in extraordinary live footage from the scene.
At one point on Thursday morning, a work crew – in what appeared to be a digger – moved along a road towards the mass of lava as it edged towards them.
Footage also showed a car on the road in the path of the lava.
Both vehicles eventually turned and moved away, leaving it almost until the last minute to leave as thick black smoke rose above the flow.
The Blue Lagoon spa, one of the island nation’s biggest tourist attractions, has once again been evacuated because of the volcanic danger.
The latest eruption began at about 6am UK time along a nearly two-mile fissure northeast of Mount Sundhnukur, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
Iceland’s Civil Protection Agency raised its alert level to emergency status after the outbreak disrupted the supply of hot water in a region just south of the capital, Reykjavik.
Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people, was evacuated before a previous eruption on 18 December last year. The town is only a couple of miles away from the new eruption.
The total solar eclipse or Surya Grahan, is scheduled to occur on April 8, 2024
The most significant astronomical event of the year, the total solar eclipse or Surya Grahan, is scheduled to occur on April 8, 2024. This rare celestial phenomenon will be visible across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, tracing its path over North America. Despite the anticipation among stargazers, it’s important to note that this particular eclipse will not be observable in India. An eclipse occurs when a celestial body, such as a planet or moon, obstructs the Sun’s light. On Earth, there are two types of eclipses: solar and lunar.
What is solar eclipse or Surya Grahan?
A solar eclipse transpires when the Moon obstructs the Sun’s light, casting its shadow on Earth and causing darkness during the day. This total eclipse occurs approximately every year and a half at different locations on Earth, while a partial eclipse, where the Moon doesn’t completely cover the Sun, happens at least twice a year somewhere on Earth.
However, witnessing a total solar eclipse is a rare opportunity, as the Moon’s shadow on Earth is relatively small, limiting the number of locations that can observe it. To witness this phenomenon, one must be on the sunny side of the planet and within the path of the Moon’s shadow. On average, the same spot on Earth experiences a total solar eclipse for only a few minutes every 375 years.
When and where to watch solar eclipse or Surya Grahan 2024
The path of the upcoming eclipse traverses Mexico, entering the United States through Texas and passing through several states before reaching Canada. The total solar eclipse will begin over the South Pacific Ocean, with Mexico’s Pacific coast being the first location in continental North America to experience totality around 11:07 a.m. PDT, weather permitting.
The path of the 2024 total solar eclipse stretches in a narrow band across the US from Texas to Maine, visible throughout all 48 contiguous U.S. states. During a total solar eclipse, the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely obscuring the Sun’s face. People within the path of totality will witness the sky darkening, resembling dawn or dusk.
Higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh are likely to witness heavy snowfall and rainfall from January 30 till February 3.
Higher reaches of Mandi, Sirmour, and Shimla districts including Shimla city and adjoining areas are likely to witness one or two spells of heavy snowfall (Image/ANI)
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted a wet spell over the western Himalayan region till February 03 with the possibility of isolated heavy falls on January 30 and 31.
The two western disturbances in succession are likely to affect northwest India from January 30 and another from February 03. Under the influence of these systems, light to moderate rainfall/snowfall is very likely over Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh during the next 6 days till February 03, IMD mentioned in the latest weather report.
Isolated heavy rainfall/snowfall is also likely over Kashmir on January 30 and 31 and over Himachal Pradesh on January 31, 2024.
Himachal Pradesh to receive heavy snowfall
Higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh are likely to witness heavy snowfall and rainfall from January 30 till February 3, according to the local meteorological department. The intensity of snowfall and rainfall are very likely to increase in the hill state from January end for two to three days due to two consecutive western disturbances, it said.
As a result, Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur, Chamba, Kullu and higher reaches of Mandi, Sirmour, and Shimla districts including Shimla city and adjoining areas are likely to witness one or two spells of heavy snowfall and rain, the weather department said in a statement issued on Sunday.
Meanwhile, light to moderate rainfall/snowfall is very likely over Uttarakhand and light rainfall over Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, and West Uttar Pradesh from January 31 to February 02.
Fog and cold day conditions to continue
Dense to very dense fog and cold day to severe cold day conditions are very likely to continue in isolated pockets of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Uttar Pradesh.
Dense fog conditions in isolated pockets are very likely to prevail for a few hours in the morning over Uttarakhand, north Madhya Pradesh, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura on January 29.
On Sunday, Delhi recorded the maximum temperature of 18.6 degrees Celsius, normal for the season’s average. The minimum temperature of 6.0 degrees Celsius, three notches below the season’s average, was recorded in the morning.
According to the IMD, from January 31 to February 1, the weather conditions will be generally cloudy with light rain or drizzle. From January 29 to 30, the city may witness moderate fog.
Kashmir Valley is witnessing a prolonged spell of dry weather with temperatures rising above the levels recorded in Delhi and other prominent cities in northern India.
Kashmir was warmer than Delhi on Saturday as the maximum temperature was recorded at 15 degrees Celsius. (Photo: Pixabay)
Kashmir’s Srinagar on Saturday recorded the maximum temperature at 15 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature in the month of January in the last two decades.
The Kashmir Valley is undergoing a remarkable shift in weather patterns, with a staggering 100% deficit in snowfall recorded in January. The prolonged dry spells, with no snowfall in the plains of Kashmir, have pushed up the temperature from 6 to 8 degrees Celsius above normal at many stations in the valley.
The mercury levels are more than most parts in the northern parts of the country. Delhi on Sunday recorded its coldest morning this winter season, with the minimum temperature dropping to 3.5 degrees Celsius.
Reacting to the unusual weather patterns, the weather department said that abrupt change in temperatures are common in recent times. These scenarios are visible in the summer season too.
But in the coming days, there is a hope that a fresh western disturbance may hit Jammu and Kashmir, and could bring a fresh spell of snowfall, also the first snowfall of the season, the weather experts said.
An arctic cold outbreak will deliver potentially record-setting, frigid air to much of the country, including the Deep South, into next week. Daily records for mid-January could be broken from Washington state to the Gulf Coast.
When It Will Happen: The first plunge of cold air is surging southward in the Plains. A reporting station near Raynesford, Montana, plunged to minus 43 degrees Friday morning. Watson Lake, British Columbia, Canada, plunged to minus 57 degrees.
Wind chills as low as minus 68 degrees were measured Friday morning at Montana’s Whitefish Ski Resort, and a minus 72 degree wind chill was recorded in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
An even stronger cold blast will surge south, from the Northwest through the Southern Plains and Midwest this weekend, before working its way toward the Southeast early next week, and finally the East Coast Wednesday.
This animation shows how far below average low temperatures are forecast each day through next Friday. The brightest pink contours indicate where low temperatures are expected to be farthest below average for this time of year.
How Cold It Will Get: During the coldest days of the outbreak…
Lows in the 20s, perhaps a few teens, will occur along the northern Gulf Coast, from East Texas to North Florida.
Teens, perhaps a few single digit-lows, are expected in the Deep South.
Below-zero low temperatures could occur as far south as parts of the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and northern Arkansas.
Lows in the minus 20s are possible as far south as Iowa and Nebraska.
Some lows in Montana will reach minus 40 degrees.
Daily records – coldest for the calendar day – are possible from Washington to Wyoming this weekend, then in parts of the Plains and Deep South, Monday through Wednesday.
Among the notables, Chicago’s O’Hare Airport could plunge to the minus teens for the first time since the January 2019 cold outbreak, and could fail to rise above zero during the day Monday and/or Tuesday. Oklahoma City could plunge below zero for the first time since the historic February 2021 cold outbreak. That said, we don’t expect this outbreak to match the ferocity of either the January 2019 or February 2021 outbreaks.
Wind Chill Danger: Strong winds will also accompany the arctic air. Those winds will combine with the cold to produce dangerous wind chills in the Rockies, Plains and Midwest.
Some wind chills in the Northern Plains could drop into the minus 40s, even minus 50s, at times, which could lead to frostbite on any exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.
How Long It Will Last: In many of these areas, the coldest air will be either through this weekend or during the first half of MLK week. Parts of the South, including Oklahoma City, Dallas and Nashville, could see several days in a row with daytime highs below freezing.
Yet another blast of cold air is now expected into many of these same areas late next week that would last at least through the weekend of Jan. 20-21.
Beyond that, some moderating of the cold air is possible, especially in the northern U.S., during the week of Jan. 22.
Why It’s So Cold: There are several reasons for this powerhouse cold outbreak.
First, blocking high pressure aloft near Greenland and the Canadian Arctic is forcing cold air out of Canada deep into the U.S., a common pattern for outbreaks in winter.
That cold air will be kept refrigerated by ample, widespread snowpack over the U.S. thanks to the recent siege of winter storms.
And this is all happening around what is typically the coldest time of winter.
This is a stunning reversal of a pattern that lead to America’s record warmest December in 129 years and the least Christmas snow cover in 20 years.
2023 marks the first time on record that every day within a year has exceeded 1 degree C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level
These record temperatures strongly increased the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and extreme rainfall associated with storms like Otis and Daniel, said XAIDA, a consortium of leading European climate institutes. (Bidesh Manna/HT Photo)
Last year was the warmest calendar year in global temperature data records going back to 1850, Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Tuesday.
In 2023, the global average temperature was 14.98 degree C, 0.17 degree C higher than the previous highest annual value in 2016. Last year was 0.60 degree C warmer than the 1991-2020 average and 1.48 degree C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level. It is likely that a 12-month period ending in January or February, 2024 will exceed 1.5 degree C above the pre-industrial level.
Copernicus, which is the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme, said: 2023 marks the first time on record that every day within a year has exceeded 1 degree C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level. Close to 50% of days were more than 1.5 degree C warmer than the 1850-1900 level, and two days in November were, for the first time, more than 2 degree C warmer.
Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service said: “2023 was an exceptional year with climate records tumbling like dominoes. Not only is 2023 the warmest year on record, it is also the first year with all days over 1°C warmer than the pre-industrial period. Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years.”
Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service added: “The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilisation developed. This has profound consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavours. If we want to successfully manage our climate risk portfolio, we need to urgently decarbonise our economy whilst using climate data and knowledge to prepare for the future.”
Wind turbines in Guizhou Province, China. CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images
There has been no shortage of bleak climate news this year: unprecedented global heat fueled deadly extreme weather events, scientists issued dire warnings that next year may be worse still, and the world’s carbon pollution kept rising.
But amid the gloom, there have also been signs of progress. Renewable energy records have been set, the world celebrated one of its greatest environmental wins and countries made a cautious but historic step towards a fossil fuel-free future.
Here are five reasons to be hopeful.
As the need to rapidly wean off planet-heating fossil fuels becomes increasingly urgent, there have been some clean energy bright spots around the world.
On Halloween, Portugal started a record-breaking streak. For more than six days straight, between October 31 to November 6, the nation of more than 10 million people relied solely on renewable energy sources — setting an exciting example for the rest of the world.
The year 2023 is on track to see the biggest increase in renewable energy capacity to date, according to the International Energy Agency.
China, the world’s biggest climate polluter, has made lightning advances in renewables, with the country set to shatter its wind and solar target five years early. A report published in June found that China’s solar capacity is now greater than the rest of the world’s nations combined, in a surge described by the report’s author, Global Energy Monitor, as “jaw-dropping.”
It can’t be ignored, however, that China also ramped up its coal production this year, turning to the fossil fuel as devastating heat waves increased energy demand for air conditioning and cooling, and as persistent drought in the country’s south impacted hydroelectric supplies, which are reliant on sufficient rainfall.
Hopes were raised that the country’s coal production will peak and come down soon, when China and the US in November announced they would resume cooperation on climate change, pledging a major ramp-up of renewable energy, specifically to replace fossil fuels.
A climate deal that targets fossil fuels
COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, from right, celebrating a new climate agreement in Dubai with the summit’s CEO, Adnan Amin, and UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. Kamran Jebreili/AP
After more than two weeks of fraught negotiations, the COP28 climate summit in Dubai concluded in December with nearly 200 countries making an unprecedented commitment to move away from fossil fuels.
While the agreement fell short of requiring the world to phase out coal, oil and gas — which more than 100 countries had supported — it did call on countries to “contribute” to a “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.” This marked the first time that all fossil fuels, the main drivers of the climate crisis, were targeted in a COP agreement.
COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, who presided over the negotiations, called the agreement “historic,” adding that the deal represented “a paradigm shift that has the potential to redefine our economies.”
How impactful this deal ultimately is will depend on what countries do next to implement it. Many experts warned of loopholes that could leave the door open to a continued expansion of fossil fuels.
But that a deal was struck at all on fossil fuels was widely welcomed seen as a breakthrough.
“We got people to do things they haven’t done before,” US climate envoy John Kerry told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour after the summit, describing it as a “historic success.”
Plummeting deforestation in Brazil
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest fell by 22.3% in the 12 months through July. Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
After years of soaring deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, there was good progress this year in reducing forest destruction.
The Amazon is the world’s biggest rainforest and its protection is seen as vital to curbing climate change. It acts a carbon sink that sucks in planet-heating pollution from the atmosphere. When forests or trees are destroyed, they emit greenhouse gases. Deforestation and land degradation is responsible for at least one-tenth of the world’s carbon pollution.
Deforestation in Brazil fell by 22.3% in the 12 months through July, according to data from the national government, as President Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva started to make progress on his pledge to rein in the rampant forest destruction that occurred under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
Marcio Astrini, head of advocacy group Climate Observatory, described it as an “impressive result” that “seals Brazil’s return to the climate agenda.”
Still, Brazil’s deforestation rate remained nearly twice that of its all-time low in 2012. Around 9,000 square kilometers of rainforest were destroyed in the period. There’s a long way to go to meet Lula’s pledge to reach zero deforestation by 2030.
The ozone layer is healing well
False-color view of total ozone over the Antarctic pole. The purple and blue colors are where there is the least ozone, and the yellows and reds are where there is more ozone.
The Earth’s ozone layer is on track to recover completely within decades, a UN-backed panel of experts announced in January, as ozone-depleting chemicals are phased out across the world.
The ozone layer protects the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays, but since the 1980s, scientists have warned about a hole in this shield due to ozone-harming substances, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used widely in refrigerators, aerosols and solvents.
International cooperation has helped stem the damage. A deal known as the Montreal Protocol, which came into force in 1989, began the phase-out of CFCs. The ozone layer’s subsequent recovery has been hailed as one of the world’s greatest environmental achievements.
If global policies stay in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 levels by 2040 for most of the world, the assessment found. For polar areas, the timeframe for recovery is longer: 2045 over the Arctic and 2066 over the Antarctic.
A study published in November, however, cast some doubt on this progress. The paper, published by Nature Communications, found that a hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic “has not only remained large in area, but it has also become deeper throughout most of the Antarctic spring.” But some scientists were skeptical of the study’s findings, saying it relied on too short a time period to draw conclusions about the layer’s long-term health.
Climate change affects health directly, causing more sickness and death. In more indirect ways, it affects nutrition, reduces working hours, and increases climate–induced stress.
Representative image of climate change protest. Credit: iStock Photo
With just one more week to go for the global conference on climate in Dubai—CoP-28 (Conference of Parties 28)—where all Heads of States will discuss global climate change, the news emerging from the United Nations is disturbing.
Earth has sped up to 2.5–2.9 degrees Celsius of global/anthropogenic warming since pre-industrial times and is set to blow well past the agreed-upon international climate threshold, a UN report has indicated.
To have a thin possibility of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, limited by the 2018 Paris Climate Agreement, countries will have to slash their emissions by 42% by the end of this decade, said the United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap report issued early this week. The report added that carbon emissions from burning coal, oil and gas rose by 1.2% in 2023.
The unfolding apocalypse
This year, Planet Earth got a taste of what is in store, setting the agenda for the Dubai meet. But, where the Dubai meet will take the world, or, more pertinently, humanity is anybody’s guess, if one critically examines how things unfold.
Significantly, the climate meeting has been scheduled to occur in oil-rich Dubai. The CoP President, Sultan Al Jaber, heads one of the world’s largest oil companies, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. The president will likely be less inclined to push the world away from fossil fuels.
By the end of September 2023, the daily global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius, the limit set earlier, above mid-19th century levels, on 86 days. That increased to 127 days because nearly all of the first two weeks of November and all of October reached or exceeded the 1.5-degree Celsius limit, according to the European climate service, Copernicus.
In 2019, the super-rich 1%
were responsible for
16%
of global carbon emissions,
which is the same as the emissions of the poorest 66% of humanity (5 billion people)
“For years we’ve fought to end an era of fossil fuels to save millions of lives and our planet. It’s clearer than ever this will be impossible until we also end an era of extreme wealth,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
Since the 1990s the richest 1 % have burned through
more than twice as much carbon
as the bottom half of humanity
Understanding the role of super-rich and rich people (the top 1% and 10% by income) in climate breakdown is essential if we are to successfully stabilize our planet and guarantee a good life for all of humanity.
The super-rich are key to the climate story in three ways:
1- through the carbon they emit in their daily lives, from their consumption, including from their yachts,
private jets and their lavish lifestyles;
2- through their investments and shareholdings in heavily polluting industries and their vested financial
interest in the economic status quo;
3- through the undue influence they have over the media, the economy, and politics and policy making.
As a result, they are robbing the rest of humanity of life on a healthy, liveable and more equal planet. New research by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute examining carbon emissions across global income groups shows just how pronounced this carbon inequality is.
• Africa’s emissions were less than 4 percent, despite the continent being home to 17 percent of the world’s populations.
• More than 91 Percent of deaths caused by climate-related disasters of the past 50 years occurred in developing countries
• The death toll from floods is 7 times higher in the most unequal countries compared to more equal countries.
• Taxes on the wealth and income of the richest could raise over $9 trillion a year to invest in a green equal future for all.
• Politicians from the US, UK, EU and Australia, responsible for passing laws to tackle climate breakdown, are all in the global top 1% of carbon emitters.
A woman walks to fetch water from a nearby hand-pump with a water cooler on her head, during a heatwave, on the outskirts of Jacobabad, Pakistan, May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
This year is “virtually certain” to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world’s hottest October in that period.
Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.
“The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as “very extreme”.
The heat is a result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence this year of the El Nino weather pattern, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Globally, the average surface air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the same month in 1850-1900, which Copernicus defines as the pre-industrial period.
The record-breaking October means 2023 is now “virtually certain” to be the warmest year recorded, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016 – another El Nino year.
Copernicus’ dataset goes back to 1940. “When we combine our data with the IPCC, then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years,” Burgess said.
The longer-term data from U.N. climate science panel IPCC includes readings from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral deposits.
The only other time before October a month breached the temperature record by such a large margin was in September 2023.
It comes as the actors’ union and studios resumed talks on Tuesday, two weeks after negotiations collapsed.
The eighth instalment of the Mission: Impossible franchise has been postponed due to the ongoing actors’ strike.
Paramount Pictures has pushed back the release date from June 2024 to May 2025.
Production had been paused in July while Tom Cruise and his co-stars embarked on an international publicity blitz for Dead Reckoning: Part One.
Filming was further disrupted when the SAF-AFTRA union began industrial action over the summer, upending the schedules of movies due to be released this autumn.
Dune: Part 2 – the follow-up to the 2021 blockbuster – was due to be released on 3 November, but this has been pushed back to March 2024 so its stars can help promote it.
Several Marvel movies previously had their release dates changed, including the third Venom film.
Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse has also been delayed indefinitely after being due to hit cinemas next March.
A new scientific study reveals that Antarctica is warming at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world, surpassing the predictions of climate change models. Researchers analyzed 78 Antarctic ice cores to reconstruct temperature data spanning 1,000 years. They found that the warming observed across the continent cannot be attributed to natural climate variability alone. The phenomenon, known as polar amplification, was previously observed in the Arctic, and this study provides “direct evidence” that it is also occurring in Antarctica.
What is polar amplification?
Polar amplification is a phenomenon where polar regions experience faster warming than the rest of the planet. The study provides evidence that this phenomenon is occurring in both the Arctic and Antarctica.
Why is West Antarctica considered particularly vulnerable to warming?
In West Antarctica, considered especially vulnerable to warming, the study identified a warming rate twice as high as climate models had projected. Its ice sheet, if collapsed, could contribute significantly to global sea level rise, potentially raising sea levels by several meters.
How does the study’s findings about Antarctica’s warming rate affect future sea level rise projections and the understanding of the continent’s climate?
The findings suggest that current climate models may underestimate the loss of ice in Antarctica, which could have implications for future sea level rise, ocean warming, and marine ecosystems.
What potential consequences are associated with a warming Antarctic?
A warming Antarctic could lead to further losses of sea ice, impacting ocean warming, global ocean circulation, and marine ecosystems. It could also result in the melting of coastal ice shelves that protect glaciers, potentially accelerating glacial retreat and contributing to sea level rise.
There may be another world lurking between the orbital lines of our solar system.
Astronomers in Japan have published their theory of an “Earth-like planet,” dubbed Planet Nine, that’s hiding in plain sight just a few billion miles behind Neptune.
Published last month in the Astronomical Journal, researchers Patryk Sofia Lykawka and Takashi Ito, of Japan’s Kindai University and the country’s National Astronomical Observatory, respectively, peered deep into the Kuiper Belt to search for signs of planetary bodies.
The Kuiper Belt is a massive ring composed of interstellar objects such as dwarf planets, asteroids, carbon masses and icy volatile elements like methane and ammonia. The celestial scrapyard sits just past Neptune’s orbit and circles the sun like anything else in our solar system.
Lykawka and Ito’s findings point to another significant object within the Kuiper Belt with “peculiar” properties, such as gravitational influence over other objects, to suggest its planetary status.
A highly detailed illustration of our solar system. shooarts – stock.adobe.com
“We predict the existence of an Earth-like planet. It is plausible that a primordial planetary body could survive in the distant Kuiper Belt as a Kuiper Belt planet, as many such bodies existed in the early solar system,” they wrote in their report, according to Earth.com.
While some astronomers remain unconvinced that such a planet exists, this new work isn’t the first to posit the existence of a ninth planet in our cosmic community.
Prior research has led to similar theories of an extra planet in the far reaches of our solar system, with Lykawka and Ito indicating a much more massive body than previously proposed, and at a much shorter distance from where we sit.
The down feathers on emperor chicks are not waterproof. They must fledge before the ice breaks up
A catastrophic die-off of emperor penguin chicks has been observed in the Antarctic, with up to 10,000 young birds estimated to have been killed.
The sea-ice underneath the chicks melted and broke apart before they could develop the waterproof feathers needed to swim in the ocean.
The birds most likely drowned or froze to death.
The event, in late 2022, occurred in the west of the continent in an area fronting on to the Bellingshausen Sea.
It was recorded by satellites.
Dr Peter Fretwell, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said the wipeout was a harbinger of things to come.
More than 90% of emperor penguin colonies are predicted to be all but extinct by the end of the century, as the continent’s seasonal sea-ice withers in an ever-warming world.
“Emperors depend on sea-ice for their breeding cycle; it’s the stable platform they use to bring up their young. But if that ice is not as extensive as it should be or breaks up faster, these birds are in trouble,” he told BBC News.
“There is hope: we can cut our carbon emissions that are causing the warming. But if we don’t we will drive these iconic, beautiful birds to the verge of extinction.”
Dr Fretwell and colleagues report the die-off in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
The scientists tracked five colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea sector – at Rothschild Island, Verdi Inlet, Smyley Island, Bryan Peninsula and Pfrogner Point.
Using the EU’s Sentinel-2 satellites, they were able to observe the penguins’ activity from the excrement, or guano, they left on the white sea-ice.
This brown staining is visible even from space.
Adult birds jump out on to the sea-ice around March as the Southern Hemisphere winter approaches. They court, copulate, lay eggs, brood those eggs, and then feed their nestlings through the following months until it’s time for the young to make their own way in the world.
Artist’s impression of prehistoric animals stuck in natural asphalt seeps. (Cullen Townsend, courtesy of NHMLAC)
Over the past decade, deadly wildfires have become increasingly common because of both human-caused climate change and disruptive land management practices. Southern California, where the three of us live and work, has been hit especially hard.
Southern California also experienced a wave of wildfires 13,000 years ago. These fires permanently transformed the region’s vegetation and contributed to Earth’s largest extinction in more than 60 million years.
As paleontologists, we have a unique perspective on the long-term causes and consequences of environmental changes, both those linked to natural climate fluctuations and those wrought by humans.
In a new study, published in August 2023, we sought to understand changes that were happening in California during the last major extinction event at the end of the Pleistocene, a time period known as the Ice Age. This event wiped out most of Earth’s large mammals between about 10,000 and 50,000 years ago. This was a time marked by dramatic climate upheavals and rapidly spreading human populations.
The last major extinction
Scientists often call the past 66 million years of Earth’s history the Age of Mammals. During this time, our furry relatives took advantage of the extinction of the dinosaurs to become the dominant animals on the planet.
During the Pleistocene, Eurasia and the Americas teemed with enormous beasts like woolly mammoths, giant bears and dire wolves. Two species of camels, three species of ground sloths and five species of large cats roamed what is now Los Angeles.
Then, abruptly, they were gone. All over the world, the large mammals that had characterized global ecosystems for tens of millions of years disappeared. North America lost more than 70% of mammals weighing more than 97 pounds (44 kilograms). South America lost more than 80%, Australia nearly 90%. Only Africa, Antarctica and a few remote islands retain what could be considered “natural” animal communities today.
The reason for these extinctions remains obscure. For decades, paleontologists and archaeologists have debated potential causes. What has befuddled scientists is not that there are no obvious culprits but that there are too many.
As the last ice age ended, a warming climate led to altered weather patterns and the reorganization of plant communities. At the same time, human populations were rapidly increasing and spreading around the globe.
Either or both of these processes could be implicated in the extinction event. But the fossil record of any region is usually too sparse to know exactly when large mammal species disappeared from different regions. This makes it difficult to determine whether habitat loss, resource scarcity, natural disasters, human hunting or some combination of these factors is to blame.
A deadly combination
Some records offer clues. La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, the world’s richest ice age fossil site, preserves the bones of thousands of large mammals that were trapped in viscous asphalt seeps over the past 60,000 years. Proteins in these bones can be precisely dated using radioactive carbon, giving scientists unprecedented insight into an ancient ecosystem and an opportunity to illuminate the timing – and causes – of its collapse.
Our recent study from La Brea Tar Pits and nearby Lake Elsinore has unearthed evidence of a dramatic event 13,000 years ago that permanently transformed Southern California’s vegetation and caused the disappearance of La Brea’s iconic mega-mammals.
Sediment archives from the lake’s bottom and archaeological records provide evidence of a deadly combination – a warming climate punctuated by decadeslong droughts and rapidly rising human populations. These factors pushed the Southern California ecosystem to a tipping point.
Similar combinations of climate warming and human impacts have been blamed for ice age extinctions elsewhere, but our study found something new. The catalyst for this dramatic transformation seems to have been an unprecedented increase in wildfires, which were probably set by humans.
The processes that led to this collapse are familiar today. As California warmed coming out of the last ice age, the landscape became drier and forests receded. At La Brea, herbivore populations declined, probably from a combination of human hunting and habitat loss. Species associated with trees, like camels, disappeared entirely.
In the millennium leading up to the extinction, mean annual temperatures in the region rose 10 degrees Farenheit (5.5 degrees Celsius), and the lake began evaporating. Then, 13,200 years ago, the ecosystem entered a 200-year-long drought. Half of the remaining trees died. With fewer large herbivores to eat it, dead vegetation built up on the landscape.
It’s believed that upon the death of super-magnetic star HD 45166, it will collapse under its own gravity and become an extremely compact core with an even more powerful magnetic field.
An artist’s impression of HD 45166
Astronomers have uncovered a star that appears on course to become one of the strongest magnets in the universe.
HD 45166 is 3,000 light years away and was spotted with multiple telescopes dotted all over the Earth, not that it’s particularly inconspicuous.
Rich in helium, this interstellar behemoth is a few times bigger than our sun.
But experts are more interested in what awaits it after death, when they believe it will become a magnetar.
These super-dense dead stars boast ultra-strong magnetic fields – the most powerful in existence.
While they are found all over our galaxy, astronomers are unsure how they form and hope that finding a likely future candidate will shed more light on their origins.
Based on the data collected from various telescopes, HD 45166 has a magnetic field of 43,000 gauss, which makes it the most magnetic massive star ever found.
The image at the top of this article, an artist’s impression of the star, shows it being enveloped by intense winds of particles that are trapped by its magnetic field.
HD 45166 is a binary system and in the background on the left is its companion, a normal blue star in its orbit.
Star’s power is immense – and there’s much more to come
Lead author, Tomer Shenar of the University of Amsterdam, said the “exciting” discovery was the first of its kind.
Co-author Pablo Marchant said its entire surface “is as magnetic as the strongest human-made magnets”.
And yet magnetars are at least a billion times stronger still.
Should HD 45166 indeed be on course to become one, death will see it collapse under its own gravity and become an extremely compact neutron star with a magnetic field of around 100 trillion gauss.
Put it this way: if a magnetar appeared around the same distance as the moon, it would be strong enough to wipe the data from every credit card on Earth.
Amid blistering heatwaves, July is “virtually certain” to be the world’s warmest month on record, say scientists.
So hot has the month been to date that researchers are confident the 2019 record will be broken, even with several days to go.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said the planet is entering an “era of global boiling”.
Scientists agree the extra heat is mainly linked to fossil fuel use.
US President Joe Biden described climate change as an “existential threat” and that no one “can deny the impact of climate change anymore”.
Some experts believe that July might well be the warmest month in the past 120,000 years.
Researchers are not surprised that July is set to break the current record for the warmest month as there have been plenty of indications in recent weeks that the world is seeing far greater levels of heating.
The world’s warmest day occurred on July 6, and the hottest 23 days ever recorded were all this month, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Their provisional average temperature for the first 25 days of the month is 16.95C, which is well above the 16.63C figure for the whole of July 2019.
Other analysis has come to the same conclusion.
Dr Karsten Haustein from the University of Leipzig has calculated that July 2023 will be 1.3C-1.7C above the average July temperatures recorded before the widespread use of fossil fuels. The best guess is around 1.5C. He’s confident that even if the last few days are cooler, the margin of error is enough to make July the hottest yet seen.
“Not only will it be the warmest July, but the warmest month ever in terms of absolute global mean temperature,” he said in a statement.
“We may have to go back thousands if not tens of thousands of years to find similarly warm conditions on our planet.”
Researchers work out the global air temperature by taking readings from weather stations dotted around the world.
However there are not enough stations to give a completely accurate global picture so scientists feed all of these readings – plus some measurements from the atmosphere itself – into computer models.
These allow scientists to create a “map without gaps”, meaning the global temperature can be reliably estimated.
By combining these datasets with global weather forecasts for the next few days, scientists can come up with a reliable estimate of the global temperature even before the end of the month.
While July is likely to be the warmest in records dating back around 150 years or so, some researchers believe the final temperature may be the warmest in tens of thousands of years.
To work out these ancient figures, scientists use records like the air trapped in polar ice cores, or sediments in the deep ocean. These capture a signal of the climate at the time.
From this evidence, while scientists can’t pinpoint specific months going that far back, they say the last time the world was similarly warm was about 120,000 years ago – when sea levels were around 8m higher than today, and hippos were present as far north as Britain.
Why are these records happening?
Researchers are confident that emissions of fossil fuels from human activities are mostly to blame for the levels of warming we are now seeing.
“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” said the World Meteorological Organization’s Secretary-General Prof Petteri Taalas.
“The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever before,” he said. “Climate action is not a luxury but a must.”
Experts believe that July’s temperature record will not be the last one broken this year.
As well as the ongoing impact of greenhouse gases, there’s the growing effect of the El Niño weather system – a natural event where oceans warm in the east Pacific and release heat into the atmosphere. This is likely to push temperatures even higher and may make 2023 or 2024 the warmest year yet recorded, because scientists warn we’re yet to see its full impacts.
There are other factors that have might have added to global temperatures.
New shipping rules have led to a smaller amount of pollutants being released, and until recently levels of Saharan dust in the atmosphere have been low.
These airborne particles, called “aerosols”, typically reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space – although the science is very complicated. It’s thought that having less of these aerosols may have made a small contribution to record North Atlantic heat.
The eruption of an underwater volcano in Tonga in 2022 has also added to the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, which heats the planet like carbon dioxide.
What does this mean for the Paris agreement?
In 2015, nearly 200 countries signed up to the Paris climate agreement. They pledged to try to keep long-term global temperature rises to 1.5C above the pre-industrial period – before humans started burning fossil fuels at scale.
Scientists caution that while the July temperatures are worrying, extreme temperatures in a single month don’t mean that international climate agreements have been broken.
More than 100 people were killed in heavy rainfall and flood-related incidents as torrential downpours continued to batter northern India. Of the total fatalities, 80 died in Himachal Pradesh since the rain began last week, causing massive damage to infrastructure and rivers to swell beyond the danger mark. An interaction between the monsoon trough and a western disturbance has led to torrential rainfall, triggering floods and landslides. Around 300 people, mostly tourists, are still stuck in the higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh due to incessant rainfall and snowfall there. In Punjab and Haryana, 15 people lost their lives even as rainfall ebbed in some parts. In neighbouring Uttarakhand, nine pilgrims were killed and 13 others injured in landslides due to boulders falling from mountains in the past 24 hours. In Delhi, the Yamuna breached the danger mark of 205.33 metres, inundating several low-lying areas along the banks of the river. The water level is dangerously close to touching the mark of 207.49 metres, the highest level which was recorded in 1978. Both road and rail traffic on the Old Yamuna Bridge has been shut as Haryana released more water into the Yamuna from the Hathnikund barrage in Yamunanagar. Stay tuned with indiatoday.in as we bring you the latest monsoon-related updates.
Weather update: Flood water inundates market in Delhi as Yamuna swells
Flood water entered a market in Delhi as the Yamuna continued to swell, with the river flowing precariously close to the all-time record level of 207.49 metres.
A video showed the lanes of the market near Kashmere Gate filled with water.
Delhi is on high alert after the Yamuna breached the danger mark of 205.33 metres on Monday.
Weather news updates: Amid heavy rain, red alert in 4 Uttarakhand districts
A red alert has been issued for four districts in Uttarakhand for today — Nainital, Champawat, Udham Singh Nagar and Pauri Garhwal — as heavy rainfall continues to lash the state.
The weather office has sounded a yellow alert for Haridwar, Dehradun, Tehri Garhwal, Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi districts.
As many as 21,000 people from seven different coastal districts of Saurashtra and Kutch have been shifted to temporary shelters, officials said, adding that the government has prioritized those living within 10 km of the coast for evacuation.
With 48 hours left for cyclone Biparjoy to make a landfall near Jakhau port in Gujarat’s Kutch district on the evening of June 15, the State administration backed by the Indian Coast Guard and Indian Army have launched evacuation operations.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, in a video message, on Tuesday evening appealed to the people to cooperate with the State Government in handling the crisis and asserted that, “We are working with a zero-casualty approach.”
As many as 21,000 people from seven different coastal districts of Saurashtra and Kutch have been shifted to temporary shelters, officials said, adding that the government has prioritized those living within 10 km of the coast for evacuation.
Significantly, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted a slight reduction in the intensity of the cyclone, stating that a “very severe cyclonic storm” is likely to make a landfall in Gujarat as against “extremely severe cyclonic storm” until Monday night.
The IMD bulletin stated, “Very severe cyclonic storm (VSCS) Biparjoy lay centred at 0230 IST of the 13th June 2023 over Northeast and adjoining east-central Arabian Sea about 290 km southwest of Porbandar & 360 km south-southwest of Jakhau Port. To cross Saurashtra & Kutch near Jakhau Port by the evening of 15th June as a VSCS.”
Similarly, the wind speed has now been forecast up to 120-130 kmph gusting to 145 kmph from the morning of June 15, from 125-135 with gusts of 150 km earlier.
Out of the seven districts, the cyclone is likely to impact the Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka and Jamnagar districts of Gujarat the most. “We have already started evacuating people residing near the coast who are likely to be affected the most during the landfall. So far, various district administrations have shifted nearly 21,000 people to temporary shelters,” State Commissioner of Relief, Alok Kumar Pandey, said.
Evacuation in progress
He added that the evacuation process is still on and all the targeted population will be shifted by Tuesday night to safer places. Alok Pandey told mediapersons in Gandhinagar that among the 21,000 people, nearly 6,500 were evacuated in the Kutch, followed by 5,000 in Devbhumi Dwarka, 4,000 in Rajkot, 2,000 in Morbi, over 1,500 in Jamnagar, 550 in Porbandar and 500 in Junagadh district.
He said one person died in an incident linked to the cyclone. On Monday, one woman was killed and her husband was injured after a tree fell on their motorcycle on a state highway in Jasdan taluka of Rajkot district due to strong winds.
The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) evacuated 50 personnel from an oil rig located 40 km off the Dwarka coast in an overnight operation amid inclement weather conditions due to the cyclone, the maritime agency said in a press release on Tuesday.
Terming the predicted showers as pre-monsoon rains, Vagaries of Weather said the onset is likely to be delayed as the cyclone has sucked the moisture which leads to rains.
Cyclone Biparjoy | Twitter
As a result of Cyclone Biparjoy, Mumbai might receive slight rainfall in the next 2-3 days, said Vagaries of Weather founder Rajesh Kapadia, adding that the city will have to wait for the actual onset of southwest monsoon.
Terming the predicted showers as pre-monsoon rains, he said the onset is likely to be delayed as the cyclone has sucked the moisture which leads to rains.
Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department on Tuesday said that the powerful cyclone Biparjoy has weakened to a ‘very severe cyclonic storm’ from an ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’. Interestingly, it’s likely to become the cyclone with the longest lifespan in the Arabian Sea, added the weather bureau.
Anyone who’s ever lived along a coastline or been at sea knows the effects of tsunamis. And, they appreciate all the early warning they can get if one’s on the way. Now, NASA’s GNSS Upper Atmospheric Real-time Disaster and Alert Network (GUARDIAN) is using global navigation systems to measure the effect these ocean disturbances have on our atmosphere. The system’s measurements could provide a very effective early warning tool for people to get to higher ground in the path of a tsunami.
Earthquakes and undersea volcanic eruptions often trigger tsunamis. Essentially, those tectonic events displace huge amounts of ocean water. During the resulting tsunami, huge areas of the ocean’s surface rise and fall. As they do, the ocean movement displaces the overlying column of air. That sets off ripples in the atmosphere. Think of it as if the air is responding by creating its own tsunami. It actually does that in response to fast-moving storms and their squall lines. Meteorologists call those reactions “meteotsunamis.” They can push water around into dangerous waves, which then cause flooding and other damage. That’s very similar to tsunamis generated by earthquakes.
What NASA’s Doing to Predict Tsunamis
Weather forecasters can generally predict bad weather leading to meteotsunamis, but that’s not the case for earthquakes and underwater volcanoes and the tsunamis they trigger. So, the NASA project aims to provide advance notice after a temblor or a volcanic eruption.
The GUARDIAN system taps into a constant data stream emitted by clusters of global positioning satellites and other wayfinding stations orbiting Earth. They give real-time information about changes in water heights in the ocean and surface measurements of land masses. Those data-rich radio signals get collected by ground stations and sent to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There, it gets analyzed by the Global Differential network, which constantly improves the real-time positional accuracy of features on the planet.
So, when a tectonic event happens, the system is alerted to look for changes in the air masses over the oceans. Displaced ripples in the air move out in all directions as low-frequency sound and gravity waves. Those vibrations rush to the top of the atmosphere within just a few minutes. There, they crash into the charged particles of the ionosphere. That distorts signals from the GPS satellites, and those distorted signals tell the system that something’s going on down below.
This animation shows how waves of energy from the Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, pierced Earth’s ionosphere in the vicinity of Japan, disturbing the density of electrons. These disturbances were monitored by tracking GPS signals between satellites and ground receivers.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Normally navigational systems would correct for the distorted signals because they aren’t useful to their users, according to Léo Martire, who works on the GUARDIAN project. “Instead of correcting for this as an error, we use it as data to find natural hazards,” he said.
Early Warning is the Key
The most active tectonic region on our planet is the area known as the Ring of Fire. It’s basically a large ring of volcanically and tectonically active regions in the Pacific Ocean basin. About 78 percent of tsunamis between 1900 and 2015 occurred there.
Most of us remember the tsunami that hit Japan after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit just off the coast in 2011. That event devastated 70 kilometers of coastline, destroyed towns and villages, killed hundreds of people, and shut down the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Damaged village in Japan in the wake of the tsunami onf 2011. Photo: Katherine Mueller, IFRC
One of the most damaging tsunamis occurred on the Big Island of Hawai’i on April 1st, 1946. An earthquake off the Aleutian Islands triggered the tsunami that crushed a small village in Alaska and struck California. It also reached out and touched the Hawaiian coast near Hilo. 50-foot waves crashed into the island, taking out buildings, and bridges, and killing 159 people.
Climate change-driven shifts in the circulation of waters to the deepest reaches of the ocean around Antarctica, which could reverberate across the planet and intensify global warming, are happening decades “ahead of schedule”, according to new research.
Scientists have said that an acceleration of melting Antarctic ice and rising temperatures, driven by the emission of planet-warming gases, is expected to have a significant effect on the global network of ocean currents that carry nutrients, oxygen and carbon.
This could not only threaten marine life, but it also risks changing the ocean’s crucial role in absorbing carbon dioxide and heat.
An earlier study using computer models suggested “overturning circulation” of waters in the deepest reaches of the oceans would slow by 40 percent by 2050 if emissions remain high.
But new research released on Thursday—based on observational data—found that this process had already slowed 30 percent between the 1990s and 2010s.
“Our data show the impacts of climate change are running ahead of schedule,” said lead author Kathryn Gunn, of the Australian Science agency CSIRO and Britain’s Southampton University.
The implications could be significant, with Antarctica’s deep ocean acting as a key “pump” for the global network of ocean currents.
“As the ocean circulation slows, more carbon dioxide and heat are left in the atmosphere, a feedback that accelerates global warming,” Gunn told AFP.
“In some ways, the fact that this is happening isn’t surprising. But the timing is.”
Gunn said previously it had been difficult to understand the changes happening in the remote region because of a lack of data and a host of challenges for scientific research, from getting funding to facing extreme conditions at sea.
The authors used observational data gathered by hundreds of scientists over decades and then “filled in the gaps” with computer modelling.
The increased use of light-emitting diodes is obscuring our view of the Milky Way as well as taking a toll on human and wildlife health
The Milky Way photographed over the Philippines. It may soon be lost to view. Photograph: Gilbert Rondilla Photography/Getty Images
The Herefordshire hills basked in brilliant sunshine last weekend. Summer had arrived and the skies were cloudless, conditions that would once have heralded succeeding nights of coal-dark heavens sprinkled with brilliant stars, meteorites and planets.
It was not to be. The night sky was not so much black as dark grey with only a handful of stars glimmering against this backdrop. The Milky Way – which would once have glittered across the heavens – was absent. Summer’s advent had again revealed a curse of modern times: light pollution.
The increased use of light-emitting diodes (LED) and other forms of lighting are now brightening the night sky at a dramatic rate, scientists have found. Indiscriminate use of external lighting, street illumination, advertising, and illuminated sporting venues is now blinding our view of the stars.
In 2016, astronomers reported that the Milky Way was no longer visible to a third of humanity and light pollution has worsened considerably since then. At its current rate most of the major constellations will be indecipherable in 20 years, it is estimated. The loss, culturally and scientifically, will be intense.
“The night sky is part of our environment and it would be a major deprivation if the next generation never got to see it, just as it would be if they never saw a bird’s nest,” said Martin Rees, the astronomer royal. “You don’t need to be an astronomer to care about this. I am not an ornithologist but if there were no songbirds in my garden, I’d feel impoverished.”
Rees is a founder of the all-party parliamentary group for dark skies which recently produced a report calling for a host of measures to counter the curse of light pollution. These include proposals to appoint a minister for dark skies, create a commission for dark skies and set strict standards for the density and direction of lighting.
The introduction of a carefully selected package of planning rules to control obtrusive light – backed by legal clout and penalties for non-compliance – could make major differences, the committee stressed. The alternative would be to lose sight of night skies “painted with unnumber’d sparks,” to quote Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Research by physicist Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences has revealed that light pollution is now causing the night sky to brighten at a rate of around 10% a year, an increase that threatens to obliterate the sight of all but the most brilliant stars in a generation. A child born where 250 stars are visible at night today would only be able to see about 100 by the time they reach 18.
Sea turtles are among the wildlife adversely affected by light pollution. Photograph: Alamy
Gazing at a night sky crossed by a glittering Milky Way has become a splendour of another age, Kyba told the Observer. “A couple of generations ago, people would have been confronted regularly with this glittering vision of the cosmos – but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare. Only the world’s richest people, and some of the poorest, experience that any more. For everybody else, it’s more or less gone.” Nevertheless, the introduction of only a modest number of changes to lighting could make a considerable improvement, Kyba argued. These moves would include ensuring outdoor lights are carefully shielded, point downwards, have limits placed on their brightness, and are not predominantly blue-white but have red and orange components.
“Measures like that would have an enormous impact,” he added.
The problem is that light pollution is still not perceived by the public to be a threat. As Professor Oscar Corcho, of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has put it: “The negative consequences of light pollution are as unknown by the population as those of smoking in the 80s.”
Yet action is now urgently needed. Apart from its astronomical and cultural impact, light pollution is having serious ecological consequences. Sea turtles and migrating birds are guided by moonlight. Light pollution causes them to get confused and lose their way. Insects, a key source of food for birds and other animals, get drawn to artificial lights and are immediately killed upon contact with the source.
After brewing in the Bay of Bengal for days, Cyclone Mocha is likely to intensify further and make landfall between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Myanmar on May 13
People shelter at a monastery in Sittwe town in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on May 12, 2023, ahead of the expected landfall of Cyclone Mocha. | Photo Credit: AFP
A powerful storm Cyclone Mocha packing winds of up to 175 kph (109 miles) barrelled towards the coasts of eastern Bangladesh and Myanmar on May 13, threatening around a million Rohingya refugees and others living in low-lying areas.
After brewing in the Bay of Bengal for days, Cyclone Mocha is likely to intensify further and make landfall between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Myanmar on Sunday, Bangladesh Meteorological Department said in a bulletin.
Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern border district, is where more than a million Rohingya refugees live, most having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
Mocha – classified as a ‘very severe cyclonic storm’ – is expected to cut a path through Myanmar’s Rakhine and northwestern region, where six million people need humanitarian assistance and 1.2 million are displaced, the U.N. humanitarian office said.
Since a junta seized power two years ago, Myanmar has been plunged into chaos and a resistance movement is fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on protests.
A spokesperson for the Myanmar junta did not respond to a phone call.
“We are focusing on saving lives,” said Mohammad Shamsud Douza, a Bangladesh government official responsible for refugees. “People who are at risk of landslides will be evacuated.”
Thousands of trained community workers and volunteers had already been deployed, alongside medical and rescue personnel who are on stand-by, he said.
There will be an evacuation involving hundreds of thousands of people before the deadly weather system, set to intensify to an “extremely severe cyclonic storm”, hits land on Sunday – directly impacting Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, home to a million Rohingya refugees.
The ‘very severe’ storm is set to make landfall in Bangladesh on Sunday. Pic: Met Office
Authorities are preparing to rescue hundreds of thousands of people ahead of a “very severe” tropical cyclone on course to hit the biggest refugee camp in the world.
Storm Mocha is expected to unleash violent winds surpassing 110mph and trigger flash floods and potential landslides when it is set to make landfall in Bangladesh on Sunday.
The cyclone was on Friday deemed “very dangerous” by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), while warnings a storm surge of up to 2.5m (8.2ft) is likely to inundate parts of Bangladesh as well as low-lying areas of neighbouring Myanmar.
Although a direct hit is not expected, Storm Mocha’s path is set to impact Bangladesh’s southeastern border district, Cox’s Bazar, home to a million Rohingya refugees.
Just weeks earlier in March, thousands of people were left homeless after a huge blaze broke out in Cox’s Bazar.
Claire Nullis from the WMO told a news briefing in Geneva: “It’s a very dangerous cyclone and… it’s associated with violent winds.”
“There will be major impacts both ahead and after landfall for potentially hundreds of thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people,” she added.
India’s Meteorological Department earlier classed Storm Mocha as “very severe” – and said on Friday afternoon the weather system is “very likely to intensify further into an extremely severe cyclonic storm” overnight.
On Friday afternoon, Storm Mocha was mapped around 600 miles (1,000km) southwest of Cox’s Bazar and 580 miles (930km) southwest of Sittwe in Myanmar, according to India’s Meteorological Department.
Cyclone Mocha: 200 rescuers of NDRF have been deployed on the ground in West Bengal’s Digha and 100 rescuers are on standby (Satellite pic via IMD website)
Cyclone Mocha Updates: Severe cyclonic storm Mocha over southeast, adjoining central Bay of Bengal, intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm, the IMD said on Friday morning.
The weather department stated that ‘Mocha’ moved northwards with a speed of 09 kmph during past six hours and intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm.
“At 5:30 am on May 12, the cyclone lay centered over central adjoining Southeast Bay of Bengal near latitude 13.2°N and longitude 88.1°E, about 520 km west-northwest of Port Blair, 1010 km south-southwest of Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh) and 930 km south-southwest of Sittwe (Myanmar),” the Indian Meteorological Department said in a statement.
The weather department further said that it is very likely to move north-northeastwards and intensify further over east-central Bay of Bengal. It is likely to cross southeast Bangladesh and north Myanmar coasts between Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh) and Kyaukpyu (Myanmar), close to Sittwe (Myanmar) around noon of May 14 as a very severe cyclonic storm with maximum sustained wind speed of 150-160 kmph gusting to 175 kmph.
#WATCH | Odisha: "Cyclone Mocha has intensified further into a very severe cyclone storm over the South-East Bay of Bengal adjoining with central Bay of Bengal region. Now it is moving with a speed of 9km per hour towards north direction…": Umashankar Das, IMD Scientist,… pic.twitter.com/A9nYnSV9DK
As Cyclone Mocha turned ‘severe’, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) deployed eight teams and 200 rescuers in West Bengal’s Digha. “Cyclone Mocha will convert into a severe storm on May 12 and a very severe cyclone on May 14, as per the predictions,” said Gurminder Singh, Commandant, 2nd Battalion, NDRF. He added that 200 rescuers of NDRF have been deployed on the ground and 100 rescuers are on standby.
Named by Yemen, Cyclone Mocha (pronounced Mokha) is set to intensify on Friday and re-curve north-northeastwards to make a landfall on Sunday between Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar and Kyaukpyu, close to port city Sittwe in Myanmar.
Cyclone Mocha: The system is likely to move north-northeastwards and intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm during the next few hours over Central Bay of Bengal, packing winds of up to 135 kmph, according to the weather office. It is likely to move towards the Bangladesh-Myanmar coast.
Cyclone Mocha Photo : PTI
Severe cyclonic storm ‘Mocha’ intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm on Friday and is set to head to the Bangladesh-Myanmar coast, the Indian Meteorological Department said on Thursday night. “The SCS “Mocha” lay centered at 0230 hours IST of 12th May 2023 over Southeast adjoining Central Bay of Bengal about 520 km west-northwest of Port Blair.
The system is likely to move north-northeastwards and intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm during the next few hours over Central Bay of Bengal, packing winds of up to 135 kmph, according to the weather office. It is likely to move towards the Bangladesh-Myanmar coast.
Key Points:
The IMD said Cyclone Mocha (pronounced Mokha), named by Yemen after its Red Sea port city, will further intensify on Friday and re-curve north-northeastwards for a Sunday landfall between Cox’s Bazaar and Kyaukpyu, close to port city Sittwe in Myanmar, packing winds of 175 kmph. “It is likely to continue to move north-northeastwards with further intensification. It is likely to cross southeast Bangladesh and north Myanmar coasts between Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh) and Kyaukpyu (Myanmar), close to Sittwe (Myanmar) around noon of 14th May, 2023 as a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm with maximum sustained wind speed of 150-160 kmph gusting to 175 kmph,” the IMD said.
Fishermen, ships, boats and trawlers have been advised not to venture into central and northeast Bay of Bengal and north Andaman Sea till Sunday.
Those sailing in central Bay of Bengal and north Andaman Sea are advised to return to coast.
Due to the weather conditions, heavy rainfall is likely to lash Tripura and Mizoram Saturday onwards. Nagaland, Manipur and south Assam are expected to get rainfall at many places on Sunday.
Lunar Eclipse Timing: The penumbral lunar eclipse will only be visible in the Eastern Hemisphere. This includes Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, and the islands of Oceania.
Lunar Eclipse 2023: In India, the eclipse is expected to be visible from several cities.
People in different parts of the world, including India, will be able to witness the first lunar eclipse of 2023 today. It will be a penumbral lunar eclipse where the Moon will enter the outer edge of the Earth’s shadow. When to watch?
The eclipse will occur at 8:45 pm IST (1515 GMT) on May 5 and end at 1:02 am IST (1932 GMT) on May 6. The peak of the event will be observed at 10:54 pm, around two hours after the start of the eclipse, according to Space.com.
Where will the eclipse be visible?
The penumbral lunar eclipse will only be visible in the Eastern Hemisphere. This includes Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, and the islands of Oceania. Those living in the Western Hemisphere wouldn’t be able to observe the event.
In India, the eclipse is expected to be visible from several cities. According to Drik Panchang, the penumbral eclipse will be spotted from 8:45 pm to 1 am in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad among other cities.
What is a penumbral lunar eclipse?
There are three types of lunar eclipses – total lunar eclipse, partial lunar eclipse, and penumbral eclipse, as per NASA. During a penumbral eclipse, the Moon makes its way through the penumbra or the faint outer part of the Earth’s shadow. This causes the Moon to dim very slightly making the eclipse hard to observe.
The first solar eclipse of the year 2023, which will be a ‘hybrid solar eclipse’ will be taking place today, April 20, 2023. This rare eclipse will cross over remote parts of Australia, Indonesia and East Timor. According to a report by PTI, the lucky few in the path of the hybrid solar eclipse will either get plunged into the darkness of a total eclipse or they’ll see a “ring of fire” as the sun peeks out from behind the moon.
The eclipse path will span the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, mostly over water. For those viewing the total eclipse, it will last a little over a minute. “Such celestial events happen about once every decade: The last one was in 2013 and the next one isn’t until 2031. They occur when Earth is in the “sweet spot” so the moon and the sun are almost the exact same size in the sky, said NASA solar expert Michael Kirk,” as quoted by a report in PTI.
13 Apr 2023
Those outside the eclipse path can still watch from a distance: Some sites in Australia will stream the event online, including the Perth Observatory and the Gravity Discovery Centre and Observatory. Unfortunately, the hybrid solar eclipse will not be visible in India.
In Western Australia the eclipse will be visible from 10:29 pm to 10:35 pm EDT on April 19 (2:29 to 2:35 GMT, April 20), in East Timor from 11:19 pm to 11:22 pm EDT on April 19 (3:19 to 3:22 GMT, April 20) and in Indonesia from 11:23 pm to 11:58 pm EDT on April 19 (3:23 to 3:58 GMT, April 20), according to a report by ANI.
How to watch the solar eclipse
It is never safe to look directly at the Sun and Moon during eclipses without specialized eye protection designed for viewing the eclipse. Viewing an eclipse with the naked eye can cause permanent damage to the eyes leading to blindness. Safe technique to observe the solar eclipse is either by using a proper filter like aluminized Mylar, black polymer, welding glass of shade number 14 or by making projection of the Sun’s image on a white board by telescope.
The defining feature of our world is life. For all we know, Earth is the only planet with life on it. Despite our age of environmental destruction, there’s life in every corner of the globe, under its water, nestled in the most extreme environments we can imagine.
But why? How did life start on Earth? What was the series of events that led to birds, bugs, amoebas, you, and me?
That’s the subject of Origins, a three-episode series from Unexplainable — Vox’s podcast that explores big mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown.
The quest of discovering the “how” of life on Earth is bigger than just filling in the missing chapters of the history book of our world. To search for the origins of life on Earth is to ask other big questions: How rare is it for life to form on any planet? How improbable is it for life to form on any planet, anywhere?
We don’t have all the pieces of the story, but what we do know tells an origin story of epic scope that takes us on an adventure to the primordial days of our world.
1) Where did Earth’s water come from?
Alexander Gerst/ESA via Getty Images
The quest to understand why there is life on Earth must start with water because water is the one thing on Earth all life needs. Different forms of life can survive on extremely different food sources, but nothing lives without water.
So it’s curious that scientists don’t fully understand how water came to cover two-thirds of the surface of our world and create the very first condition necessary for life.
The problem is simple. When the Earth was forming, it was extremely hot. Any water that was around at the beginning would have boiled away.
“So how do you get so much liquid condensing onto the surface of a planet that should be really, really hot?” Lydia Hallis, a planetary scientist at the University of Glasgow, tells Unexplainable’s Noam Hassenfeld.
Scientists can think of a few plausible options. Was it delivered by comets crashing into our world? Or more fantastically, do we only have water due to the extremely circumstantial event of planets like Jupiter wandering toward the sun from the outer solar system? Or was it, somehow, deeply buried within the early Earth?
Hallis has been traveling the world to investigate and try to find some samples of the very oldest water on Earth. Here’s what she’s learned so far:
2) How did life start in that water?
Even single-celled organism can be incredibly intricate. So how did the first one form? DeAgostini/Getty Images
Once there was water, somehow there was life. It’s possible that life didn’t start on Earth at all. But scientists have good reason to suspect it did.
For decades, scientists have been trying to recreate in labs the conditions of that early water-filled Earth. The thinking is, perhaps if they can mimic the conditions of the early Earth, they will eventually be able to create something similar to the first simple cells that formed here billions of years ago. From there, they could piece together a story about how life started on Earth.
This line of research has demonstrated some stunning successes. In the 1950s, scientists Harold Urey and Stanley Miller showed that it’s possible to synthesize the amino acid glycine — i.e. one of life’s most basic building blocks — by mixing together some gasses believed to have filled the atmosphere billions of years ago, with heat and simulated lightning.
Since then, scientists have been able to make lipid blobs that looked a lot like cell membranes. And they’ve gotten RNA molecules to form, which are like simplified DNA. But getting all these components of life to form in a lab and assemble into a simple cell — that hasn’t happened.
So what’s standing in the way? And what would it mean if scientists actually succeed and create life in a bottle? They could uncover not just the story of the origin of life on Earth, but come to a shocking conclusion about how common life must be in the universe.
3) What is life anyway?
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
However life first started, today we know Earth is teeming with it. We know life when we see it. But do we know what life fundamentally is?
No.
“No one has been able to define life, and some people will tell you it’s not possible to,” says Carl Zimmer, science reporter and author of Life’s Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive.
That’s not for a lack of trying. “There are hundreds, hundreds of definitions of life that scientists themselves have published in the scientific literature,” Zimmer says.
This question — what is life — feels like it should be easy, something a fifth grader ought to answer. “It does feel like it should be easy because we feel it,” Zimmer says. “Our brains are actually tuned to recognizing things like biological motion. We’re sort of hardwired for recognizing life. But that doesn’t actually mean that we know what it is.”
Expert panel formed by state govt has warned that several pockets of the town are sinking due to man-made and natural causes. Locals say report did not factor in Tapovan tunnel.
Cracks on a building in Joshimath town | Credit: Expert panel report
Dehradun: An expert panel set up by the Uttarakhand government has found that several pockets of Chamoli district’s Joshimath town — a gateway to the Badrinath shrine, the Hemkund Sahib gurdwara, the popular hill station of Auli, and the India-China border — are sinking due to both man-made and natural factors. As a result, the government will be putting together an action plan that may include a construction ban as well as relocation of local residents from “unsafe” areas, ThePrint has learnt.
The panel’s report points to ‘ground subsidence’ — a gradual settling or sudden sinking of the earth’s surface due to removal or displacement of subsurface materials — that has induced structural defects and damage observed in almost all wards of Joshimath. ThePrint has accessed the report.
The committee comprising scientists and geologists was formed on the recommendation of the Chamoli district magistrate in July following repeated complaints from the local populace about sinking areas and deep cracks appearing on the buildings.
“Although the government is yet to receive the report, going by the information provided by the committee members, a solid action plan will be put in place on engineering aspects as well as relocation of people from unsafe locations in Joshimath town,” state disaster management secretary Ranjit Kumar Sinha told ThePrint.
Heavy rain coupled with strong winds pounded Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Monday under the influence of a depression over the north Andaman Sea, which is likely to intensify into a cyclone by evening, the India Meteorological Department said.
The depression over the north Andaman Sea intensified into a deep depression, moving north-northeastwards at a speed of 12 km per hour, it said.
The weather system, which lay about 110 km east-southeast of Port Blair on Andaman Islands, is expected to further intensify into a cyclone by Monday evening, the IMD said.
“It is likely to move nearly northwards along and off Andaman Islands towards the Myanmar coast during the next 48 hours,” it said in a bulletin.
People living in low-lying and flood-prone areas in the archipelago have been evacuated and housed in temporary relief camps in North and Middle Andaman and South Andaman districts, officials said.
Inter-island ferry services, as well as shipping services with Chennai and Visakhapatnam, have been stopped, and all educational institutions closed in the wake of the inclement weather, they said.
Around 150 personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed and six relief camps opened in various parts of the islands, the officials said.
Long Island has received 131 mm of rainfall till 8.30 am, while 26.1 mm rainfall was recorded in Port Blair, they said.
Control Rooms have also been opened in all the three districts of the union territory.
The sea condition is likely to be very rough and the weather office has advised suspension of all tourism and fishing activities for the next two days.
Fishermen are advised not to venture into southeast Bay of Bengal on Monday, and into the Andaman Sea on Monday and Tuesday.
Brace yourselves, allergy suffers — new research shows pollen season is going to get a lot longer and more intense with climate change.
Ragweed pollen grains, magnified and colorized. BOB SACHA/CORBIS DOCUMENTARY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Our latest study finds that the U.S. will face up to a 200 percent increase in total pollen this century if the world continues producing carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources at a high rate. Pollen season in general will start up to 40 days earlier in the spring and last up to 19 days longer than today under that scenario.
As atmospheric scientists, we study how the atmosphere and climate affect trees and plants. While most studies focus on pollen overall, we zoomed in on more than a dozen different types of grasses and trees and how their pollen will affect regions across the U.S. in different ways. For example, species like oak and cypress will give the Northeast the biggest increase, but allergens will be on the rise just about everywhere, with consequences for human health and the economy.
If your head is pounding at just the thought of it, we also have some good news, at least for knowing in advance when pollen waves are coming. We’re working on using the model from this study to develop more accurate local pollen forecasts.
Why Pollen Is Increasing
Let’s start with the basics. Pollen — the dust-like grains produced by grasses and plants — contains the male genetic material for a plant’s reproduction.
How much pollen is produced depends on how the plant grows. Rising global temperatures will boost plant growth in many areas, and that, in turn, will affect pollen production. But temperature is only part of the equation. We found that the bigger driver of the future pollen increase will be rising carbon dioxide emissions.
The higher temperature will extend the growing season, giving plants more time to emit pollen and reproduce. Carbon dioxide, meanwhile, fuels photosynthesis, so plants may grow larger and produce more pollen. We found that carbon dioxide levels may have a much larger impact on pollen increases than temperature in the future.
Sanand Factory in Gujarat, India, created by Studio Saar, explores how a factory can go beyond being eco-friendly to also be healthier and happier for workers. The new factory is built on the site of a former lakebed. It features a seasonal lake that varies in depth by the time of year. Additionally, the facility was commissioned by electronics manufacturer Secure Meters, who works in the automotive industry.
The designers promoted staff wellbeing in addition to reducing energy consumption. For instance, there is a recreation area, a canteen for staff and many sustainable features throughout the factory from rainwater collection to 2,000 trees planted on site.
Furthermore, the factory is expandable. Built in phases, the facility is economical and allows for production to start in record time. The clients wanted an inclusive environment that promoted communication and collaboration. As a result, they wanted to break down the hierarchy often seen in manufacturing workplaces.
Therefore, the facility is built on a 25-acre site that has been repurposed and designated for industrial development. It is split into three zones for manufacturing, employee recreation and visitors. The facility has four buildings: a main manufacturing line, a utility bay, a canteen and recreation center and a reception building.
