Environment
Climate change changing Earth’s time: study
By Daniel Lawler and Juliette Collen PARIS, March 27, 2024 (AFP) – Struggle to wrap your head around daylight savings? Spare a thought for the world’s timekeepers, who are trying to work out how climate change is affecting Earth’s rotation — and in turn, how we keep track of time. In a strange twist, global warming could even help out timekeepers by delaying the need for history’s first “negative leap second” by three years, a […]
Israel’s war budget leaves top scientists in limbo
By Ilan BEN ZION BEIT DAGAN, Israel, March 27, 2024 (AFP) – Israeli scientist Ellen Graber has spent years researching ways to save chocolate crops from climate change. But with the government slashing spending to fund the war in Gaza, her project is one of hundreds now hanging in the balance. Graber’s research had already been hit by the war — she had to abandon her cacao plants when the area where they were grown […]
UN warns against thirsty tech to solve water crisis
PARIS, March 22, 2024 (AFP) – The world needs to better manage its freshwater resources but thirsty new technologies touted as solutions could lead to “serious problems” if left unchecked, a UN report warned Friday. Roughly half of the planet’s population is facing grave water shortages, with climate change-linked droughts affecting more than 1.4 billion people between 2002 and 2021, the report for the UN cultural agency UNESCO said. As of 2022, more than 2 […]
NASA: El Niño and climate change drive global sea level rise
Global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) from 2022 to 2023 — nearly four times the increase of the previous year — NASA said Thursday, attributing the “significant jump” to a strong El Nino and a warming climate. The NASA-led analysis is based on more than 30 years of satellite observations, with the initial satellite launching in 1992 and the latest in 2020. Overall, sea levels have risen by around four […]
UN warns ‘planet on the brink’ after warmest decade on record
By Nina LARSON GENEVA, March 19, 2024 (AFP) – Global heat records were “smashed” last year, the UN confirmed Tuesday, with 2023 rounding out the hottest decade on record, as heatwaves stalked oceans and glaciers suffered record ice loss. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization issued its annual State of the Climate report, confirming preliminary data indicating that 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded. And it came at the end of “the […]
Record heat index of 62.3C scorches Rio de Janeiro
RIO DE JANEIRO, March 18, 2024 (AFP) – A heat wave stifling Brazil set new records on Sunday, with Rio de Janeiro’s heat index hitting 62.3 degrees Celsius, the highest in a decade, weather authorities said. The heat index measures what a temperature feels like, taking into account humidity. The actual maximum temperature in the city was 42 ºC on Monday, the Alerta Rio weather system said. The 62.3C record was notched in western Rio […]
Icelandic volcano erupts for the fourth time on Reykjanes peninsula
REYKJAVIK, March 17, 2024 (AFP) – Icelandic police declared a state of emergency Saturday as lava spewed from a new volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes peninsula, the fourth eruption to hit the area since December. A “volcanic eruption has started between stora Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula,” said a statement from the Icelandic Met Office (IMO). Live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke. Iceland’s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management […]
Sprawling storms, tornadoes kill 3 in US midwest
Devastating storms pounded three central US states Thursday night, spawning massive tornadoes including one that hit a trailer park in Indiana and killed three people, US media reported. More than 13 million people in the central United States were under tornado watches, the National Weather Service (NWS) said. A “very dangerous half-mile-wide tornado” touched down in Ohio state, NWS said. One struck the rural town of Indian Lakes in western Ohio. “It’s pure devastation. I […]
With bites rare, experts want sharks to shed scary reputation
By Gerard MARTINEZ JUPITER, United States, March 15, 2024 (AFP) – As the northern hemisphere edges toward spring and millions flock to the beach, headlines have dubbed the southeastern US state of Florida the world’s most likely place to be bitten by a shark. They’re right, but, at the same time, shark bites are exceedingly rare overall — a fact scientists wish more people knew, especially amid declining shark populations desperately in need of conservation. […]
Turks up in arms over killing of stray cat
The killing of a stray cat in Istanbul has triggered petitions, protests and death threats, pushing the president to intervene and the courts to retry the culprit. On January 1, Ibrahim K. was caught on a security camera in the lobby of the building where he lived kicking to death a stray cat named Eros that his neighbours regularly fed. He was sentenced in early February to 18 months in jail but was then released […]
Whale of a tail: Scientists track unique humpback ‘fingerprint’
By Juan RESTREPO, Juan BARRETO ON BOARD THE ARC SIMON BOLIVAR , Antarctica, March 15, 2024 (AFP) – In Antarctica, a scientist waits patiently for two frolicking humpback whales to poke their tails out of the icy waters so she can take a photographic “fingerprint” of the unique colors and patterns that allow researchers to identify individuals of the species. Andrea Bonilla, a Colombian scientist at Cornell University in the United States, has been working […]
