Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Eléonore HUGHES Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The world’s biggest iceberg is on a collision course with a remote South Atlantic island that is home to thousands of penguins and seals, and could impede their ability to gather food, scientists told AFP Wednesday. Icebergs naturally break off from Antarctica into the ocean, but climate change has accelerated the process — in this case, with potentially devastating consequences for abundant wildlife in the British […]
SANTIAGO Chile (AFP) — The year 2020 is the hottest in the Antarctic Peninsula in the past three decades, a study by the University of Santiago de Chile out Friday found. Between January and August, temperatures reached between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius (35.6 and 37.4 degrees Fahrenheit) on the peninsula, which is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica, according to researchers at the Chilean Air Force’s Frei Base on King George Island. Those temperatures are […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse More than half the ice shelves ringing Antarctica that prevent huge glaciers from sliding into the ocean and lifting sea levels are at risk of crumbling due to climate change, researchers said Wednesday. Melt water running into deep fissures caused by warming air is undermining the structural integrity of these natural barricades, they reported in Nature. “If the ice shelves fill up with melt water, things can happen very quickly,” […]
by Sara HUSSEIN Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Scientists had nicknamed it “The Thing” — a mysterious football-sized fossil discovered in Antarctica that sat in a Chilean museum awaiting someone who could work out just what it was. Now, analysis has revealed the mystery fossil to be a soft-shelled egg, the largest ever found, laid some 68 million years ago, possibly by a type of extinct sea snake or lizard. The revelation ends nearly […]
by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Parts of the Antarctic Peninsula will change color as “green snow” caused by blooming algae is expected to spread with increases in global temperatures, research showed Wednesday. Although often considered devoid of plant life, Antarctica is home to several types of algae, which grow on slushy snow and suck carbon dioxide from the air. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A more than 600-square-mile iceberg broke off Antarctica in recent days, but the event is part of a normal cycle and is not related to climate change, scientists say. The iceberg, dubbed D28, broke away from the Amery ice shelf between September 24 and 25, according to observations from European and American satellites. It measures 1,582 square kilometers (610 square miles), according to the European Copernicus program. It is […]
The second largest Emperor penguin colony on Earth has suffered a “catastrophic” breeding failure after nearly all chicks born over three years died as their icy Antarctic habitat shrinks, researchers said Thursday. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) used satellite imagery to study the behaviour of the Halley Bay colony in the Weddell Sea due south of Cape Hope, which normally sees up to 25,000 penguin pairs mate each year. They found that in 2016, when […]
The increasing number of natural disasters and dangers linked to climate change, highlighted in a major UN report released on Thursday, represents “another strong wake-up call” to the world, which must be countered by finding sustainable solutions quickly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said. Speaking at the launch of the State of the Global Climate report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Mr. Guterres reiterated his call for action, underlining that the alarming conclusion that […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain and the United States on Monday launched a research program billed “the most detailed and extensive examinations of a massive Antarctic glacier ever undertaken” to gauge how quickly it could collapse. Teams from Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) will visit the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica to assess if its cave-in could begin in the next few decades or centuries. […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Sea ice cover in Antarctica has dropped to its second-lowest on record, Australian authorities said Friday, adding that it was not yet clear what was driving the reduction after several years of record-highs. The report came as scientists said earlier this week that the Arctic region was seeing record high temperatures, with sea ice covering the smallest area in winter since records began more than half-a-century ago. The Australian Antarctic […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Mass starvation has wiped out thousands of penguin chicks in Antarctica, with unusually thick sea ice forcing their parents to forage further for food in what conservationists Friday called a “catastrophic breeding failure”. French scientists, supported by WWF, have been studying a colony of 18,000 pairs of Adelie penguins in East Antarctica since 2010 and discovered only two chicks survived the most recent breeding season in early 2017. They attributed […]
