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Huge glacier retreat triggered in 1940s
Air pollution 'causes 467,000 premature deaths a year in Europe'
Drive, baby, drive: Hammond's autumn statement is more grey than green
The money for new roads and freezing fuel tax overwhelms support for electric cars, further fuelling the nation’s air pollution crisis
Drive, baby, drive - that was the message from chancellor Philip Hammond’s autumn budget statement, with more money paving the way to new roads and a freeze on fuel tax.
The problem is the UK already has an air pollution crisis that causes tens of thousands of early deaths – more traffic will only make it worse. Furthermore, rising transport emissions are one of the biggest obstacles to the nation meeting its legal targets for cutting carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Schiaparelli: Esa gives update on Mars crash investigation
Autumn colors across North America – in pictures
As winter finally arrives across the US, we take a look back at the annual dazzling display of color across the continent
Continue reading...Honour for software writer on Apollo moon mission
UK has second-highest number of deaths from NO2 pollution in Europe
Only Italy has more annual deaths from nitrogen dioxide, according to a report by the European Environment Agency
The UK is second only to Italy in Europe for the highest number of annual deaths from a major air pollutant, a report has found just days after a court gave UK ministers a deadline for drawing up a stronger air quality plan.
The European Environment Agency said the UK had 11,940 premature deaths from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 2013. This is down from 14,100 in 2012, but still the second worst in Europe. The toxic gas is mostly caused by diesel vehicles and is linked to lung problems.
Continue reading...Thanksgiving: What US astronauts will be eating in space
The simple, cheap instruments measuring global warming in the oceans | John Abraham
They may be cheap and expendable, but XBTs provide crucial data about the oceans
Earth is warming due to the release of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Scientists are working hard to measure how fast the planet is warming, how much warming has occurred over the past few decades, and how this is affecting coastal areas, ecosystems, and fisheries. By understanding these factors, scientists can better project future climate impacts.
A large component of Earth’s warming involves the oceans, which absorb excess heat. The difficulty of gathering measurements in the oceans is that they are vast, deep, and often hard to reach. It’s also costly. Think about it: if you wanted to take the ocean’s temperature, how would you do it?
Continue reading...The new climate change story must be one of rapid transition
With a reality TV demagogue in power, it’s crucial that we find a story in which people can discern a better future
Climate change is like the type of film director who, having already thrown the audience into seemingly inescapable peril, keeps piling on the jeopardy. The carbon budget to stay below the Paris climate accord’s target of 1.5C of warming is all but used up, and staying below even its lower goal of 2C now requires elaborate leaps of faith.
Continue reading...Keep it in the ground: fossil fuel divestment leaps at universities
43 UK universities have pledged to dump investments in fossil fuels, having accepted the arguments of campaigners
Pretty much all we know about climate change comes from academia, which makes the news of a leap in fossil fuel divestment by universities in the UK particularly important.
On so many issues over the decades, where universities lead, society follows. Now, as I report here, 43 UK universities have pledged to dump investments in fossil fuels, having accepted the arguments of campaigners that funding these companies is both economically and morally bankrupt.
Continue reading...Bolivian water rationing – in pictures
The worst drought in 25 years in Bolivia is affecting at least seven major cities. In La Paz alone, water rationing has hit almost half of the city’s 800,000 inhabitants while, elsewhere, peasants and miners are competing for the use of aquifers.
Continue reading...All the colours of a November evening
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire There is something about the combination of sky-blue, red and black that fascinates me – I don’t understand why
For a moment before dusk, the sky was sky-blue. Like looking into a pool, only overhead, the sky’s edges around its horizons were pale, chalky, blackbird egg blue, deepening through Wedgwood into the above as it thickened ultramarine and darkened inkily towards space.
Oddly, the colour gained more substance as the atmosphere became thinnest, so that light itself was the material of air. From high on the Edge, the blue replaced everything I noticed about the sky: crazy shoals of rooks and jackdaws, arrowheads of geese, wraiths of starlings speeding towards murmurations.
Continue reading...Trump to scrap Nasa climate research in crackdown on ‘politicized science’
Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding as the president-elect seeks to shift focus away from home in favor of deep space exploration
Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.
Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.
Continue reading...Could 'whale poo diplomacy' help bring an end to whaling?
Japan’s fleet has left port for another season of “scientific” research whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Like last year, there is little that anyone can do to legally rescind Japan’s self-issued lethal research permit – a fact that has led to calls for more pragmatism and less confrontation in efforts to conserve whales.
Such avenues include greater collaboration between the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and other organisations, and a renewed emphasis on marine ecosystem research in the Southern Ocean.
How whale poo can helpWhile Japan’s new whaling program dominated the IWC’s summit last month, a Chilean-sponsored resolution nicknamed the “whale poo” resolution was also quietly adopted at the meeting.
More formally known as the Draft Resolution on Cetaceans and Their Contribution to Ecosystem Functioning, the resolution notes the growing scientific evidence that whale faeces are a crucial source of micronutrients for plankton.
The resolution will lead to a review of the ecological, environmental, social and economic aspects of whale defecation “as a matter of importance”, while the IWC’s Scientific Committee will review the research and identify any relevant knowledge gaps.
Why is this important?Much of the Southern Ocean is described as high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll (HNLC) waters. This means that the despite high concentrations of important nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate, the abundance of phytoplankton is very low.
Phytoplankton is the base of the marine food chain, and plays an important role in the global carbon cycle by removing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis. However, the growth of phytoplankton in large HNLC regions of the Southern Ocean is limited by the availability of a key micronutrient: iron. In essence, the Southern Ocean is anaemic, and whale poo is the remedy.
It works like this. Antarctic krill graze on phytoplankton, taking up the iron. The krill are then consumed by whales, which store some iron for their own use as an oxygen carrier in their blood (as in ours), but also expel large amounts of iron in their faeces.
Adult blue whales, for example, consume about 2 tonnes of krill a day, and the amount of iron in their faeces is more than 10 million times higher than normal seawater.
Conveniently, whale poo is liquid, and is released at the surface where it can act as a fertiliser to promote phytoplankton growth in the ocean’s sunlit top layers. Therefore, whales are part of a positive feedback loop that helps sustain marine food chains.
The whale poo positive feedback loop. Indi Hodgson-Johnston/University of TasmaniaMore whales obviously make more whale poo, so it makes sense that more research and protection should be afforded to whales to ensure a healthier marine ecosystem.
Scientists collect whale faeces from the surface of the water, making this a great way to do whale research without killing or harming them.
What about scientific whaling?Some have suggested that the legal arguments against scientific whaling are well and truly exhausted, and that controlled commercial whaling could be the next step. Assuming that anti-whaling nations such as Australia would not follow such a pathway, and that hard law options are frustrated, other avenues to end lethal research are needed.
The whale poo resolution also aims to increase the IWC’s existing collaborations with various research organisations. This includes the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), of which Japan is a member. CCAMLR made headlines last month when it approved, by consensus, the world’s largest marine protected area in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.
While the CCAMLR Convention states that nothing in it shall derogate from the rights and obligations under the Whaling Convention, the role of whales are important to CCAMLR’s ecosystem approach to conserving marine life in the Southern Ocean.
Japan’s current whaling program has the stated scientific objective of investigating “the structure and dynamics of the Antarctic marine ecosystem through building ecosystem models”. This aligns with both the research needed for CCAMLR’s ecosystem approach and the Australian Antarctic Division’s own research priorities.
With an emphasis on research such as ecosystem modelling, collaborations that include and value Japan’s abundant non-lethal research in the area could help to most of the stated scientific objectives of Japan’s whaling program without harming whales.
Of course, many people contend that the main purpose of Japan’s whaling program is not scientific. But this doesn’t change the fact that the same old battles at sea and in the courts have done little to prevent the taking of whales. The Whaling Convention cannot be changed, and nor can Japan’s interpretation of it. A different tack is clearly needed in both law and diplomacy.
As the new marine protected area shows, Antarctica is a proven platform of peace. Increasing joint scientific research, and riding on the wave of the recent success in the Ross Sea, may provide fresh dialogue with which to resolve the stalemate. What we need is a newly respectful, non-combative discourse with Japan which, whaling aside, is a brilliant contributor to Antarctic science.
Joint Australian and Japanese research in other areas of Southern Ocean and Antarctic science has a long and friendly history. It is upon these longstanding and positive relationships that research addressing relevant objectives should be focused and funded.
Constructive interventionWhile some, including the Australian Greens, have called for an Australian government vessel to intervene, Japan is whaling in waters that are recognised by most countries as the high seas.
Since the landmark 2014 International Court of Justice ruling, Japan no longer consents to that court’s jurisdiction on matters of living marine resources. And with little recognition of Australian jurisdiction in the area, and the risk of any intervention being illegal under laws of the sea, there is little hope for successful international legal action. Sending an Australian ship to intervene or collect evidence would therefore be largely futile.
On the other hand, researching marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean is difficult and expensive. Instead of sending a customs vessel, Australia should divert its funds and attention to research that will boost our understanding of the Southern Ocean ecosystem and its role in the global carbon cycle.
By increasing knowledge and recognition of whales’ role in the Southern Ocean ecosystem, the resolution offers yet another avenue for developing norms of non-lethal whale research that are recognised as legitimate by all International Whaling Commission members.
Perhaps in one of Australia’s most vexed diplomatic issues with their close ally, whale poo could pave the way to more intensive and thoughtful scientific collaborations, and help deliver a peaceful end to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.
The author would like to thank Lavy Ratnarajah, a biogeochemist at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, for her kind assistance with the scientific aspects of this article. The views expressed are solely those of the author.
Indi Hodgson-Johnston receives funding from the University of Tasmania.
Victoria Coalition may vote against “fairer” solar feed in tariffs
Scientists scale trees in desperate attempt to save orange-bellied parrot
Critically endangered bird – down to just 14 in the wild – not helped by being ‘morons’ with poor survival instincts
Scientists are scaling trees in Tasmania in an attempt to save the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot after the wild population dropped to the “stupidly low numbers” of just 14 individuals.
Three of those wild-born birds are females that have begun the process of selecting nest boxes in Melaleuca, a blustery outpost in the wilderness world heritage area near the southwest tip of Tasmania.
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