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by Lucie GODEAU Agence France-Presse JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Every year, pounding rains wash away mountains of plastic waste from the streets of Jakarta, with some of it ending up as far away as Bali’s beaches. So scientists are turning to satellites to trace the rubbish and figure out how to tackle the problem. Indonesia allows more waste to enter the ocean than any other country apart from China. The archipelago of nearly 270 million […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Even if humanity stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, Earth will warm for centuries to come and oceans will rise by metres, according to a controversial modelling study published Thursday. Natural drivers of global warming — more heat-trapping clouds, thawing permafrost, and shrinking sea ice — already set in motion by carbon pollution will take on their own momentum, researchers from Norway reported in the Nature journal […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — The world’s sea floor is littered with an estimated 14 million tons of microplastics, broken down from the masses of rubbish entering the oceans every year, according to Australia’s national science agency. The quantity of the tiny pollutants was 25 times greater than previous localised studies had shown, the agency said, calling it the first global estimate of sea-floor microplastics. Researchers at the agency, known as CSIRO, used a robotic […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse Ice loss from Greenland’s massive ice sheet will cause sea levels to rise more during the 21st century than they have during any 100-year period in the last 12,000 years, even if global warming is held in check, scientists said Wednesday. The study — based on ice core data and models and published in the journal Nature — is the first to painstakingly reconstruct Greenland’s ice loss record over the […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Limpets — those coin-sized, suction-cup critters with conical caps — have had the experts fooled all along. For more than a century, scientists have assumed that their out-sized ability to clamp onto tide-pool rocks in defiance of bare-handed attempts to pry them off was due mostly to muscle power. Some South African limpets, one study showed, could withstand up to 100 kilos (220 pounds) of force. […]
by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The melting of the Eurasian ice sheet around 14,000 years ago lifted global sea levels by about eight meters, according to new research published Monday that highlights the risks of today’s rapid ice cap melt. Earth’s last Glacial Maximum period began around 33,000 years ago, when vast ice sheets covered much of the Northern Hemisphere. At the time, the Eurasian ice sheet — which covered […]
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Greenland and Antarctica are shedding six times more ice than during the 1990s, driving sea-level rise that could see annual flooding by 2100 in regions home today to some 400 million people, scientists have warned. The kilometers-thick ice sheets atop landmasses at the planet’s extremities sloughed off 6.4 trillion tonnes of mass from 1992 through 2017, adding nearly two centimeters (an inch) to the global watermark, according to […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s Navy chief said Tuesday that an unauthorized Chinese vessel had entered its waters in the strategic Indian Ocean Region in September, with media reports suggesting New Delhi deployed a warship to repel the vessel. India is wary of Chinese clout in the Indian Ocean Region — one of the busiest maritime routes in the world — which it considers to be in its sphere of influence. The Chinese research […]
by Ivan Couronne Agence France Presse Most of the plastic bottles washing up on the rocky shores of Inaccessible Island, aptly named for its sheer cliffs rising from the middle of the South Atlantic, probably come from Chinese merchant ships, a study published Monday said. The study offers fresh evidence that the vast garbage patches floating in the middle of oceans, which have sparked much consumer hand-wringing in recent years, are less the product of […]
by Nicolas GUBERT Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Cod, sole and plaice might be regulars on European dinner tables but as climate change heats the oceans common species are heading to cooler northern waters — with profound potential consequences for fish stocks and consumers. Experts say bluefin tuna, seahorse and the bright triggerfish from the tropics are swimming to Europe’s warming seas while fish such as cod are migrating northwards. “We will […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Global warming and pollution caused by humanity’s carbon-heavy footprint are ravaging Earth’s oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale, a landmark UN report to be unveiled next week will warn. Diplomats and scientists from 195 nations gather in Monaco from Friday to validate a summary for leaders of observed and projected impacts ranging from vanishing glaciers and […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Greenland’s ice sheet may have completely melted within the next millennium if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate, according to a new study with implications for sea-level rise around the world. The Greenland ice sheet holds the equivalent of seven meters (yards) of sea level. “If we continue, as usual, Greenland will melt,” said lead author Andy Aschwanden, a research associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ […]
