The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is rapidly melting. Scientists now have evidence for when it started and why By Laura Paddison, CNN Mon February 26, 2024 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/26/...er-antarctic-ice-melt-climate-intl/index.html Scientists have looked back in time to reconstruct the past life of Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” — nicknamed because its collapse could cause catastrophic sea level rise. They have discovered it started retreating rapidly in the 1940s, according to a new study that provides an alarming insight into future melting. The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is the world’s widest and roughly the size of Florida. Scientists knew it had been losing ice at an accelerating rate since the 1970s, but because satellite data only goes back a few decades, they didn’t know exactly when significant melting began. Now there is an answer to this question, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. By analyzing marine sediment cores extracted from beneath the ocean floor, researchers found the glacier began to significantly retreat in the 1940s, likely kicked off by a very strong El Niño event — a natural climate fluctuation which tends to have a warmingimpact. Since then, the glacier has been unable to recover, which may reflect the increasing impact of human-caused global warming, according to the report. What happens to Thwaites will have global reverberations. The glacier already contributes 4% ofsea level rise as it sheds billions of tons of ice a year into the ocean. Its complete collapse could raise sea levels by more than 2 feet. But it also plays a vital role in the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, acting like a cork holding back the vast stretch of ice behind it. Thwaites’ collapse would undermine the stability of the ice sheet, which holds enough water to raise sea levels by at least 10 feet, causing catastrophic global flooding. A 2017 photo shows a new iceberg calved from Pine Island Glacier, one of the main outlets where ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet flows into the ocean. Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory/US Geological Survey The study’s findings match previous research on the neighboring Pine Island Glacier, one of the largest ice streams in Antarctica, which scientists also found started retreating rapidly in the 1940s. This makes the research significant, said Julia Wellner, an associate professor of geology at the University of Houston and one of the study’s authors. What’s happening to Thwaites is not specific to one glacier, but part of the bigger context of a changing climate, she told CNN. “If both glaciers are retreating at the same time, that’s further evidence that they’re actually being forced by something,” Wellner said. To build a picture of Thwaites’ life over the past nearly 12,000 years, the scientists took an icebreaker vessel up close to the edge of the glacier to collect ocean sediment cores from a range of depths. These cores provide a historical timeline. Each layer yields information about the ocean and ice going back thousands of years. By scanning and dating the sediments, the scientists were able to pinpoint when the substantial melting began. From this information, they believe Thwaites’ retreat was set off by an extreme El Niño that happened at a time when the glacier was likely already in a phase of melting, knocking it off balance. “It’s sort of like if you get kicked when you’re already sick, it’s going to have a much bigger impact,” Wellner said. The findings are alarming because they suggest that once big changes are triggered, it’s very hard to stop them, said James Smith, a marine geologist at the British Antarctic Survey and a study co-author. “Once an ice sheet retreat is set in motion it can continue for decades, even if what started it gets no worse,” he told CNN. While similar retreats have happened much further back in the past, the ice sheet recovered and regrew, Smith said. But these glaciers “show no signs of recovery, which likely reflects the growing influence of human-caused climate change.” Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Jeremy Harbeck/OIB/NASA Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved in the research, said the study confirms and adds detail to our understanding of how Thwaites’ retreat began. A system that was already close to being unstable “took a big shot from a mostly natural event,” said Scambos, referring to the El Niño. “Further events arising more from the warming climate trend took things further, and started the widespread retreat we’re seeing today,” he told CNN. Martin Truffer, a physics professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the research shows if a glacier is in a sensitive state, “a single event can knock it into a retreat from which it is difficult to recover.” “Humans are changing the climate and this study shows that small continuous changes in climate can lead to step changes in glacier state,” said Truffer, who was not involved in the research. Antarctica is sometimes called the “sleeping giant,” because scientists are still trying to understand how vulnerable this icy, isolated continent may be as humans heat up the atmosphere and oceans. Wellner is a geologist — she focuses on the past not the future — but she said this study gives important and alarming context for what might happen to the ice in this vital stretch of Antarctica. It shows that even if a trigger for rapid melting has ended, that doesn’t mean the response stops. “So if the ice is already in retreat today,” she said, “just because we might stop warming, it might not stop its retreat.”
Scientists Locate Mysterious ‘Dark Oxygen’ on the Ocean Floor in Baffling Discovery that Challenges Ideas on Life’s Origins Micah Hanks·July 22, 2024 https://thedebrief.org/scientists-l...overy-that-challenges-ideas-on-lifes-origins/ Scientists have discovered metallic minerals on the deep ocean floor that produce “dark oxygen,” according to findings presented in a new study that potentially upend past assumptions that our planet’s oxygen is produced solely by photosynthetic organisms. The discovery, made at a depth of 13,000 feet below the ocean surface, shows that oxygen can be produced even in the complete darkness of Earth’s sea bottoms. The new findings could potentially challenge our current understanding of the origins of aerobic life on Earth. The Discovery of ‘Dark Oxygen’ “For aerobic life to begin on the planet, there had to be oxygen, and our understanding has been that Earth’s oxygen supply began with photosynthetic organisms,” said Andrew Sweetman of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), who made the groundbreaking discovery while sampling the seabed of a mountainous submarine ridge in the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. “But we now know that there is oxygen produced in the deep sea, where there is no light,” Sweetman added. According to Sweetman and his colleagues, the key to the discovery involves polymetallic nodules, natural mineral deposits on the ocean floor. These nodules, some of which can be as small as tiny sand grains and others as large as a baseball, are composed of metals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, and nickel, all of which are critical for battery production. polymetallic nodules see on the ocean floor within the Clarion-Clipperton zone (Credit: Geomar-Bilddatenbank/Wikimedia Commons). Now, with the revelation that oxygen production has been associated with these nodules, Sweetman and other researchers involved with the discovery are already reconsidering the implications for industries that include deep-sea mining. “We need to rethink how to mine these materials, so that we do not deplete the oxygen source for deep-sea life,” said Franz Geiger, a researcher at Northwestern University who led the team’s electrochemistry experiments that potentially could help to explain the phenomenon. Geiger, along with Sweetman, is the co-author of a new study published in Nature Geoscience that describes the research team’s findings. A Surprising Discovery Initially, Sweetman thought the detection of oxygen on the ocean floor might have been a result of sensor errors. “We would come home and recalibrate the sensors, but, over the course of 10 years, these strange oxygen readings kept showing up,” Sweetman said in a statement. Additional verification through other means ultimately helped confirm the surprising discovery, prompting Sweetman to contact Geiger in the summer of 2023 to explore the potential ways oxygen might be produced under such unusual circumstances. Geiger’s past research involved studies involving how rust and saltwater can generate electricity, which led the pair to begin investigating the possibility that polymetallic nodules that proliferate on the seafloor could be generating enough electricity to account for the presence of oxygen resulting from seawater electrolysis. A mere 1.5 volts—roughly the voltage of a typical AA battery—provides enough energy to split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen. During testing, individual nodules were observed to produce up to 0.95 volts, and while surprising by itself, this falls well short of the required voltage for electrolysis. However, Sweetman and Geiger found that when clustered together, multiple nodules can function essentially the same as several batteries connected in a series, providing ample voltage to produce oxygen. These “geobatteries” within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone likely possess enough energy to meet global supply demands for several decades. The downside, however, is that past studies from several decades ago reveal that areas where deep ocean mining has occurred reveal virtually no recovery, even down to simple organisms. “In 2016 and 2017, marine biologists visited sites that were mined in the 1980s and found not even bacteria had recovered in mined areas,” Geiger said in a recent statement. “In unmined regions, however, marine life flourished,” he added. As to why these mined portions of the ocean floor remain veritable “dead zones” for decades remains a mystery. For Geiger, such problems place “a major asterisk onto strategies for sea-floor mining as ocean-floor faunal diversity in nodule-rich areas is higher than in the most diverse tropical rainforests.” The new paper by Sweetman, Geiger, et al, “Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor,” appeared in the journal Nature Geoscience on July 22, 2024.
Destructive cyclones and dreamlike scenery: award-winning photos show beauty and destruction By Nell Lewis, CNN Fri July 26, 2024 The award selected winners in six categories, including one dedicated to mangroves and people. Johannes Panji Christo won this with an image of a Balinese man covered in mud from a mangrove forest during a bathing purification tradition, known as Mebuug Buugan. Johannes Panji Christo/Mangrove Photography Awards Mangrove Photography Awards 2024: Images show the world’s disappearing mangrove forests 2 of 12 Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action. CNN — A photograph of a young girl in a checked green dress against the backdrop of a churned-up sea filled with debris is the winner of the 2024 Mangrove Photography Awards. Taken by Indian photographer Supratim Bhattacharjee, it shows the aftermath of a cyclone in the Sundarbans, a huge mangrove forest that lies atthe delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers on the Bay of Bengal. Extreme weather is becoming more frequent in the region, leading to the destruction of homes and businesses, and the mass displacement of people. In this case, the girl’s tea house was destroyed in the storm. “We see the girl’s life turn upside down … her look of helplessness reflecting the turmoil of life for many people on the southern coast of the Sundarbans in India,” Leo Thom, founder of the Mangrove Photography Awards and creative director of Mangrove Action Project, told CNN. “As sea levels rise and storms breach the protective embankments, their land becomes inundated with saltwater from the sea, making it impossible to grow crops for years to come,” he added. Mangrove trees on the banks of awater channel in Al Dhafra, United Arab Emirates. Ammar Alsayed Ahmed/Mangrove Photography Awards In its tenthyear, the photography awards areintended to drive awareness of the beauty and fragility of mangrove forests like the Sundarbans and highlight the urgent need for their protection. Found in 123 countries, the unique ecosystems are key in the fight against climate change, acting as a giant carbon store. They also serve as a natural barrier against flooding, and provide a habitat to threatened animal species like tigers and jaguars. “Known as the ‘roots of the sea,’ our coastal forests are crucial for the survival of millions of coastal communities, providing protection from the extremes of nature and acting as nurseries for fish and marine life,” said Thom. Yet despite this, they are also one of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. According to a recent report from the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, more than half of global mangrovesare at risk of collapse by 2050. The awards, which received more than 2,500 entries from 74 nations, selected winners in six categories, including one dedicated to mangrove threats. This category’s winning image, taken by Dipayan Bose in India, shows a man standing in his flooded home; other commended images depict urban development encroaching on mangrove forests, and pollution rangingfrom fishing nets to toxic chemicals. A multiple exposure photograph of a saltwater crocodile's eye in a mangrove forest in Australia. Nicholas Alexander Hess/Mangrove Photography Awards Other categories celebrate the beauty of mangroves, with stunning aerial images of mangrove forests lining turquoise channels, and shots of amazing wildlife that lives within these ecosystems. A “young mangrove photographer of the year” title was awarded to Australia’s Nicholas Alexander Hess, for his intense multiple exposure photograph of a saltwater crocodile’s eye peering out of a mangrove forest at low tide. “Captured at night, the image gives off a slightly unsettling feeling, such as what one may experience in a mangrove, unknowing of what predators may be lurking nearby, hidden by the dense network of the mangrove,” said Hess in a press release. The awards’ organizers believe that the wide variety of images from all corners of the world can help to raise awareness of the ecological role mangroves play and catalyze their protection. “We hope the photography awards can help connect people to mangrove forests and their conservation, by exciting them about the diversity of life found within them,” said Thom. “We want to see existing healthy mangroves protected and improve restoration of our lost forests.”
Water levels in major Amazon tributary tumble to record lows amid drought Climate change and below-average rainfall have left the Rio Negro and other rivers at their shallowest levels ever recorded. Boats sit stranded on October 4 as the port of Manaus in Brazil struggles with record-low water levels [Bruno Kelly/Reuters] 5 Oct 2024 https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2...-tributary-tumble-to-record-lows-amid-drought It’s one of the largest rivers in the world. And its water levels have fallen to a record low. Amid drought and wildfires, the Rio Negro plummeted to a depth of 12.66 metres (41.5 feet) on Friday, according to the Geological Service of Brazil, a government agency. That’s the shallowest depth recorded since measurements were first taken in 1902. And researchers in the port city of Manaus fear water levels could further tumble as the dry season continues through much of October. “This is now the most severe drought in over 120 years of measurement at the Port of Manaus,” Valmir Mendonca, the port’s head of operations, told the Reuters news agency. The Rio Negro is a major tributary of the Amazon River — and a mighty waterway in its own right. The river drains more than 10 percent of the water in the Amazon River basin, and it is the sixth-largest river in the world by average discharge. It is also the world’s largest blackwater river, with decaying plant matter giving its currents a characteristic dark colour. But widespread drought has shrunk the Rio Negro and other waterways in the Amazon, creating an environmental and economic crisis. Scientists believe climate change has exacerbated the usual dry-season conditions, leaving riverbeds dry, boats stranded and aquatic animals beached. Some experts told local media the Rio Negro could fall below 12 metres before the end of the month. Friday’s measurements surpassed the record-low set last year, later in the dry season. Other Amazon tributaries — including the Solimoes River, which intersects with the Rio Negro — have likewise seen historically low water levels. The drought threatens to spark a humanitarian crisis for the more than 40 million people living in and around the Amazon. Residents rely on the waterways not only for drinking water and bathing but also for transportation and food. Restaurant owner Erick Santos told the O Globo newspaper that businesses in his community of Puraquequara, situated along the Rio Negro, have been devastated by the drought. Basic food items are in short supply. “Our revenue has dropped by 50 percent,” he told the paper. “On the weekend, it was common for people to jump into the water. Now everything is land.” Researchers have also reported finding freshwater dolphins dead along riverbanks, due to stress from the drought. In recent months, the Amazon rainforest has been struggling with below-average rainfall and man-made fires that have ravaged the dense tree cover, disrupting the tropical biome. As much as 59 percent of Brazil is suffering the effects of the drought, according to government reports last month. “This is the first time that a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast,” Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, said in a statement in September. “It is the most intense and widespread drought in history.” A porter carries bananas brought by boat across a dry area of the Rio Negro at the port of Manaus in the Amazonas state of Brazil on October 4. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] Dock worker Francisco Ferreira Pinheiro reads a metre stick in the Rio Negro at the port in Manaus. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] Measurements at the Manaus port show the Rio Negro has fallen to its lowest levels since record-keeping began more than 120 years ago. [Bruno Kelly/Reuters] Along the port of Manaus, the waters of the Rio Negro had receded from the banks, leaving boats far from their usual docks. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] The low river levels have affected transportation along the Amazon basin's waterways and even access to hydroelectric power. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] Communities along rivers like the Rio Negro rely on waterways for the shipment of supplies, like food. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] The drought has also strained local economies and food systems that rely on the rivers for fishing, agriculture and drinking water. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] Houseboats were seen stranded along the Rio Negro on October 4, with water levels expected to continue dropping. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] The severe drought has ravaged large swaths of Brazil, with approximately 59 percent of the country affected. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo] An estimated 62 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Amazonas have declared a state of emergency as the drought stretches on. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo]
What happens when tards in 3rd world countries do whatever they want, cutting down huge swathes of rain forests.
Opinion China’s ‘artificial sun’ has sent shockwaves through the West By James Titcomb February 3, 2025 Western governments and investors have spent much of the last week fretting about scientific breakthroughs from China. Almost overnight, the artificial intelligence company DeepSeek rose from apparent obscurity to challenge America’s unassailable lead in AI, sending markets into a tailspin and sparking national security and data reviews among concerned officials. This satellite picture shows a laser ignited fusion research centre located in Mianyang, China. Image courtesy Planet Labs.Credit: Planet Labs Less widely noticed was the emergence of a grainy series of satellite images taken over the central Chinese city of Mianyang. The photos show a large X-shaped building, with four wings protruding from a central hub. According to researchers at the national security think tank CNA, the images appear to show a giant laser nuclear fusion research centre. In such a facility, high-powered emitters in the four protruding structures fire lasers directly at a central chamber to heat fuel pellets to 100 million degrees celsius, creating a reaction similar to the one that powers the sun. Laser-ignited fusion is critical to simulating nuclear weapons explosions, but could also be a step to the holy grail of energy. If successful, nuclear fusion promises unprecedented levels of green and reliable power. So far, US researchers have taken the lead in advancing the technology. Two years ago, scientists at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said an experiment had produced more energy from a fusion reaction than the power needed to create it, marking a momentous scientific breakthrough. But the Mianyang facility appears to be 50 per cent bigger than its US counterpart and has been seen as the latest sign that China not only has ambitions to catch up with the West on fusion but overtake it. ‘Artificial sun’ A sign of how serious Beijing is taking this new energy arms race emerged last week when the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced that the country’s scientists had run an “artificial sun” – a fusion drive aimed at replicating the star’s reactions - for 1,066 seconds, more than double the previous record. State media published celebratory photos of the doughnut-shaped “Tokamak” machine where the experiment took place, with a prominent Chinese flag poking out of the top. High-powered emitters in the laser nuclear fusion research centre fire lasers directly at a central chamber to heat fuel pellets to 100 million degrees celsius, creating a reaction similar to the one that powers the sun.Credit: Glenn Campbell Unlike nuclear fission – the splitting of the atom to release energy – fusion involves forcing two hydrogen atoms together to create a single element such as helium, producing incredible force in the process. In the sun, atoms are pushed together by the star’s massive gravitational pull, whereas on Earth it requires extreme temperatures and powerful magnetic fields. If mastered, fusion promises to provide effectively infinite energy without the radioactive waste generated by fission. Fusion has been an ambition since the postwar years – when China was an economic and technological minnow. However, despite long-standing hopes, scientists have so far been unable to harness the technology. ‘I don’t consider China to be in the lead right now. But am I worried about them in the future? The answer is yes. It’s very clear that the Chinese are able to build much faster.’ Fusion Industry Association chief Andrew Holland. Stunted progression has enabled the Red Dragon to become a major player over the past 25 years, investing billions of pounds in the hope it can conquer fusion’s promise. “There’s no question that they’re making tremendous progress, they see nuclear – both fission and fusion – as a big national priority,” says George Borovas, a nuclear energy lawyer at Hunton Andrews Kurth, and who sits on the World Nuclear Association’s board. “They have an objective. It’s very coordinated.” Much of China’s original work in fusion came through partnerships with Western countries, particularly after the country joined the World Trade Organisation at the start of the new millennium. In 2003, China joined the France-based International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), a global project that dates back to the 1980s. Construction began on the project in 2010, but repeated delays pushed back a deadline for firing up the reactor from 2020 to 2025, and last year, bosses said it would now not turn on until 2034. It has been described as the “most delayed and most cost-inflated science project in history”. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) machine in Hefei China. Geopolitical tensions While China remains a part of Iter, geopolitical tensions between its members have risen. And while Western projects have been hampered by delays, China has been rapidly developing its own industry. A forthcoming China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor, a domestic alternative to Iter, is due to be completed around 2035, meaning it could well come online before the long-planned European project. Experts say that while fusion initiatives in the US and Europe are disjointed, China’s long-term plans are aided by huge amounts of state funding and high expectations, giving them a greater chance of success. “Almost no weekends, no holidays for us,” Xianzu Gong, a scientist at the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, China’s current top research station, told Nature last year. The race to master fusion has been given new impetus by net zero targets, but also by the rise of power-hungry artificial intelligence, which tech executives have said could suck up as much as a quarter of US electricity demand by the end of the decade. The concern now is that China has surpassed the West. A report last year from the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that America and China were “at a par” in developing fusion, but that China’s ability to build reactors at scale – 150 are planned between 2020 – would give it an advantage in deploying the technology. The report found that, unlike China, the US lacked “a comprehensive nuclear fusion strategy”. The US government also spends half of what Beijing does on fusion research, with much more of the financing in the private sector. A series of generously-funded fusion start-ups are now promising a nimble, innovative approach to the technology, many backed by Silicon Valley billionaires. Helion, a start-up bankrolled by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and OpenAI boss Sam Altman, has promised to provide Microsoft with fusion energy by 2028, a goal it stuck to last week when it raised $US425 million ($687 million) from investors including SoftBank. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Britain also has a crop of promising start-ups such as Tokamak Energy and First Light Fusion, as well as a longstanding scientific pedigree. However, last year, the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) lobby group warned that the UK risks squandering its lead in the field to China. It said that while Britain had “probably the greatest concentration of fusion skills on the planet clustered around Oxfordshire”, the Government needed to lay out a plan for how fusion would eventually connect to the grid. Only then will investors have enough clarity to get involved. Andrew Holland, the FIA’s chief executive, says that the industry is not calling for a Manhattan Project-sized initiative, but that more support will be needed to match China. “Competing against the world’s second-largest economy as a private company doesn’t seem like a fair fight,” he says. “I don’t consider China to be in the lead right now,” Holland says. “But am I worried about them in the future? The answer is yes. It’s very clear that the Chinese are able to build much faster.”