1. #5101
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    Klondyke's Avatar
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    Just aired on TV5 interesting document:

    2 DEGREES, THE BOTTOM OF THE CLIMATE WAR

    A look behind the scenes of the climate war that rages like never before since the election of Donald Trump at the White House. Posted objective: to destroy or apply the Paris climate agreement signed in 2015. With the testimonies of Laurent Fabius and the main actors of this negotiation.

    Director: Jean-Michel Carré (France, 2018)
    2 degrés, les dessous de la guerre climatique

  2. #5102
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    Just watched a doco on the meat industry. It says the combined CO2 output from meat consumption is as much as the total for all transport, road rail sea and air. with 30% of agricultural land currently dedicated to feeding livestock. This is surely unsustainable in the long term. The problem is any carbon savings from western countries (principally Western Europe) has been more than offset by the increased carbon pollution from India USA and Asia with Chinese Co2 levels still increasing. I am totally pessimistic about any meaningful reduction in Co2 levels, at least until there is a huge climate induced catastrophe in the USA and China that just cannot be ignored. Without drastic reductions from these two countries, the rest of the world is fiddling around the edges.

  3. #5103
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    China is working on it more seriously than the USA. They still build coal plants, true. They need increased power production for their economy going forward. But their medium and long term plans are shifting towards a new safer generation of nuclear plants and solar. They invest heavily in fusion research as well.

    Something needs to be done regarding meat production.
    "don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"

  4. #5104
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Blazing heat waves blast Australia as all-time records fall

    While the U.S. awaits the consequences of a breakdown in the polar vortex, Australia has been sizzling through an unrelenting series of heatwaves that have shattered all-time records.


    Why it matters: Heat waves are one of the clearest manifestations of global warming, and extended episodes can be particularly deadly and costly. In Australia, they also heighten the risk of wildfires.

    Details: The heat waves began in December and have continued throughout January. On Dec. 27, the average daily national maximum temperature in Australia was the hottest on record for December, and the second-highest for any month, the
    Bureau of Meteorology found.


    The BOM found the heat noteworthy for its long duration and broad extent, saying in a special report on Jan. 17 that every state and territory in the country has been affected at some point.


    By the numbers:


    • 35.9°C, or 96.6°F: The overnight low temperature on Jan. 17 in Noona, New South Wales, which was the country's hottest nighttime low on record.



    • 40°C, or 104°F: The temperature reached or exceeded in Canberra for 4 consecutive days, something that had not occurred since records began there in 1939.



    • 49.3°C, or 120.74°F: High temperature in Marble Bar, Australia, which was the highest temperature for anywhere in Australia in 2018.



    • 44.1°C, or 111.3°F: Average monthly temperature in Marble Bar during December, a new national record for the month.



    • 40.19 °C, or 104.3°F: Average daily maximum temperature for Australia on Dec. 27, which was the hottest December day on record for Australia.


    The big picture: While the proximate causes for Australia's heat waves in late 2018 and early 2019 include a weak El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, the BOM and the country's main climate agency, CSIRO, have concluded that Australia's climate is changing as a result of human-caused global warming.

    For example, in a climate report summarizing 2018's conditions, these agencies found:


    • Australia's climate has warmed just over 1°C, or 1.8°F since 1910, "leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events."



    • Oceans around Australia have warmed by nearly the same amount since 1910, "contributing to longer and more frequent marine heat waves."



    • In addition, the length and severity of the fire season has increased "across large parts of Australia," the report found.


    https://www.axios.com/australia-heat-waves-shatter-all-time-records-warmest-night-9dd9ad1c-65a0-4a45-9e1b-1f9daeceb9cf.html

  5. #5105
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    BoganInParasite's Avatar
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    I've spent 4.5 years of the last six in Dubai and Phoenix AZ and never thought I had to stop and think whether places in Australia had experienced hotter weeks than I had in those two places...until last week.

  6. #5106
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    There is weird shit going on that is not being properly reported.

    During spring and summer, busy colonies of a duck called the common eider (Somateria mollissima) and other wild birds are usually seen breeding on the rocky coasts around the Baltic Sea. Thousands of eager new parents vie for the best spots to build nests and catch food for their demanding young broods.

    But Lennart Balk, an environmental biochemist at Stockholm University, witnessed a dramatically different scene when he visited Swedish coastal colonies during a 5-year period starting in 2004. Many birds couldn’t fly. Others were completely paralyzed. Birds also weren’t eating and had difficulty breathing. Thousands of birds were suffering and dying from this paralytic disease, says Balk. “We went into the bird colonies, and we were shocked. You could see something was really wrong. It was a scary situation for this time of year,” he says.

    Based on his past work documenting a similar crisis in several Baltic Sea fish species, Balk suspected that the birds’ disease was caused by a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. Thiamine is required for critical metabolic processes, such as energy production and proper functioning of the nervous system. This essential micronutrient is produced mainly by plants, including phytoplankton, bacteria, and fungi; people and animals must acquire it through their food.


    Scenes such as the one in Sweden, seen again and again in recent years in a variety of species in Europe and North America, have Balk and other researchers worried that something in the environment is causing widespread thiamine shortages, which could explain these specific episodes—as well as possibly larger-scale wildlife population collapses. “This could be a very serious source of mortality,” says Stephen Riley, a fish ecologist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor, MI.

    Researchers generally agree that the crises in seabirds, fish, and other marine species have thiamine deficiencies in common. But much remains unknown. Is a thiamine shortage the root cause of the problem in every case? What might be driving such a widespread environmental vitamin deficiency? As instances of sick and dying wildlife continue to arise, though, a sense of urgency is building among researchers trying to figure out what’s going on. “I don’t think we agree in our assessment of it other than that it is a real issue,” says Clifford Kraft, a freshwater ecologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.


    As a young researcher in the late 1980s, Balk started out examining the impacts of industrial pollution and endocrine disruptors on fish health. But he was so taken aback upon seeing the effects of thiamine deficiency on fish, he abandoned his earlier work to focus on this problem instead. In the late 1990s, Balk saw that several fish species in the Baltic Sea, including Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), had trouble reproducing. Many of the larvae couldn’t swim straight and were lethargic before dying. When he supplemented the larvae with thiamine, almost all survived. In contrast, almost all of the larvae not treated with thiamine supplements died. Balk concluded that the fish were suffering from a thiamine deficiency (1).

    Just a few years earlier, researchers had begun seeing similar devastation among fish in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Since 1995, researchers including John Fitzsimons, then a fish biologist for the Canadian government and now retired, had documented a thiamine deficiency that devastated populations of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and several species of salmon in the Great Lakes (
    2). The fish were not reproducing and had difficulty maintaining their balance while swimming. “It’s like the fish were drunk. They lost their balance and would fall on their side,” says Fitzsimons. At first, researchers thought pollutants were to blame, but the suspicion was not borne out in tests. In a moment of inspiration, Fitzsimons realized the fish must be lacking a nutrient.


    “One day the fish would be fine, and the next they would be lying on their side. It got me wondering if they had some sort of deficiency,” he recalls. Fitzsimons supplemented eggs from sick fish with thiamine and other B vitamins. He found that just less than 10% of fish eggs injected with thiamine died. The other B vitamins had no therapeutic effect. In contrast, he saw greater than 75% mortality in the control specimens that received no added vitamins. Fitzsimons and his colleagues concluded a thiamine scarcity was behind the paralysis and population declines of fish in the Great Lakes (
    2, 3).


    After witnessing similar symptoms resurface in wild birds in 2004, Balk concentrated on exploring how far the disease reached. In 2009, his team documented symptoms in European herring gulls (Larus argentatus) and the common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) in addition to S. mollissima from sites across northern Europe. The researchers saw that the thiamine concentration in L. argentatus egg yolk was as much as 41% lower in birds from the Baltic Sea area compared with birds taken from around Iceland. The researchers also saw a drop in several biomarkers of thiamine activity, including thiamine-dependent enzymes, indicating that the vitamin was scarce in some birds around the Baltic Sea.

    Balk’s team treated sick birds with thiamine injections and found that all but 1 of 10 paralyzed adult L. argentatus recovered over a 2-week period. None of the untreated birds showed signs of improvement. In addition, 10 young birds fed a thiamine solution on the first and second days after hatching were vigorous and active, whereas 10 young birds fed a saline solution were lethargic and apathetic and began to die approximately 4 days after hatching. Similar tests on S. vulgaris and S. mollissima also suggested that individuals were suffering as a result of thiamine deficiency. Balk reported that the deficiency was hampering the birds from breeding, which could be contributing to declines in local seabird populations.


    It was certainly not the first time such symptoms had been seen in birds. In the 1880s, Christiaan Eijkman, a doctor working in the Dutch East Indies, observed paralysis in chickens, noting that they were experiencing weakness in their legs reminiscent of a disease known as beriberi, which was afflicting people across Asia at the time.


    Eijkman linked the paralysis to the chickens’ diet of predominately cooked white rice, which he believed must be toxic; but his colleague, Gerrit Grijns, later came to suspect the rice had been stripped of some vital protective substance by modern milling processes. In some parts of Asia where people’s diets also relied largely on white rice, beriberi affected nearly 30% of the population. Eijkman shared a Nobel Prize in 1929 for his observations that aided the discovery of thiamine—the first vitamin to be identified (5). Today, instances of thiamine deficiency among people are rare because the vitamin is added to a wide range of processed foods, such as breakfast cereal. But deficiency does still occur among refugees with poor diets and among those who have alcoholism because their bodies have difficulty absorbing the vitamin.

    Still another group at risk are people who eat a lot of fermented fish, notes Riley, because the fish are rich in the enzyme thiaminase, which breaks down thiamine. In fact, a diet of thiaminase-rich fish, it turned out, was the culprit in the case of thiamine-deficient Great Lakes trout and salmon.


    In 2005, a team including Don Tillitt, an environmental toxicologist at the USGS, reported that salmon and lake trout were eating mainly alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus), an invasive species of fish that is rich in thiaminase. Tillitt and his colleagues fed 17 female lake trout, from a hatchery in Michigan, a diet consisting of only alewives. The team found that the fish laid eggs with a total thiamine concentration of approximately 2.5 nmol/g. In contrast, 13 fish were fed only bloaters (Coregonus hoyi)—prey fish lacking thiaminase—laid eggs with approximately 12 nmol/g. The researchers saw that nearly 20% of the young fish died when their mothers were fed only alewives. But all the young survived when their mothers were fed bloaters (
    6, 7).


    “Thiamine deficiency almost completely stopped all reproduction in some fish species in the Great Lakes, causing huge population declines,” says Tillitt.


    So far, no such clear explanation has emerged for the other cases of thiamine-deficient wildlife that researchers have documented, even as the tally grows. In 2016, Balk showed that several other species across northern Europe, including blue mussels (Mytilus sp.) and eels (Anguilla sp.), were also suffering from the deficiency. He further analyzed correlations between deficiency-induced biochemical changes and long-term health effects, such as increased parasite infection and impaired growth (8).

    “We found that thiamine deficiency is much more widespread and severe than previously thought,” Balk says. Given its scope, he suggests that a pervasive thiamine deficiency could be at least partly responsible for global wildlife population declines. Over a 60-year period up to 2010, for example, worldwide seabird populations declined by approximately 70%, and globally, species are being lost 1,000 times faster than the natural rate of extinction (
    9, 10). “He has seen a thiamine deficiency in several differ phyla now,” says Fitzsimons of Balk. “One wonders what is going on. It’s a larger issue than we first suspected.”


    In this year’s Trends in Ecology & Evolution “Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation,” a prominent group of conservation researchers also flagged increasing evidence of thiamine deficiencies in “a range of taxonomic groups” and in ocean waters as “a possible driver of wildlife declines” (
    11). “It seemed to us that this could be an important area that needs more research in the future,” says William J. Sutherland at Cambridge University, one of the authors.


    Critics, however, say more research is needed before declaring a global crisis or implicating a thiamine shortage. Contaminants such as lead and diseases such as botulism, caused by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, can cause paralytic symptoms similar to those of thiamine deficiency. By blocking the production or release of acetylcholine, botulism causes a loss of muscle function and flaccid paralysis in the legs, wings, and neck. As a result, infected birds often drown. The animals typically ingest the botulism toxin directly or eat invertebrates, such as insects, that contain it. “The links between thiamine deficiency and impacts at the population level are not well established,” writes wildlife ecotoxicologist Christian Sonne of Aarhus University in Denmark (
    12, 13). Sonne, who declined to comment for this article, has written multiple critiques of Balk’s 2009 paper on wild birds.


    Tonie Rocke, an epizootiologist at the USGS National Wildlife Health Centre in Madison, WI, notes that outbreaks of botulism are common in water birds, easily killing 100,000 individuals globally in a given year. Balk’s study omitted tests needed to rule out other possible causes of death, Rocke says. “There was no postmortem examination of the birds. He just decided they died of thiamine deficiency.” Rocke doesn’t dispute Balk’s evidence that the animals were suffering from low thiamine but does “take issue with the sweeping conclusion” that the deficiency was reducing population sizes, she says. Balk acknowledges that the birds, such as eider ducks, probably were suffering from other diseases and health effects—which he contends were most likely caused by the thiamine deficiency.


    To bolster the argument that thiamine deficiency can be severe enough to wreak havoc on whole populations, Balk and a team led by Torsten Mörner, a wildlife pathologist at the National Veterinary Institute in Uppsala, Sweden, further examined eider duck reproduction. The team found that thiamine-deficient eider ducks on Vållholme in southern Sweden were not laying as many eggs as expected: The average clutch size across 16 nests was 3.8 eggs per nest compared with a normal average of 4.6 eggs. Tests showed the eggs were deficient in thiamine as well.


    In the field, Mörner also observed the unusual sight of hundreds of adult female birds alone on the water. Typically, females are surrounded by young birds, he says. On closer inspection, the team discovered the young birds survived only a few days after hatching. On average, the number of young birds was just 6% of the expected population size. The researchers monitored nests with cameras and saw that the eggs hatched normally and were not robbed by other birds. Instead, upon reaching the water, the weakened ducklings were preyed upon by herring gulls (
    14).


    Not only did thiamine deficiency cause the ducks to lay fewer eggs, Mörner says, more than 90% of the ducklings that did hatch were lost through herring gull predation. “They just lay there and looked at the gulls, and of course they were eaten.” Mörner’s results do advance the evidence of harm to populations, says Rocke. “It suggests a link to population declines,” she notes, adding the study also effectively rules out botulism as the cause of paralysis in the ducks. “Botulism was very unlikely in this case.”

    A Sea of Possibilities

    Even as researchers agree to disagree about some specific examples of wildlife in distress, Balk and others are investigating what might be the root cause of such a widespread environmental thiamine deficiency.

    Balk fears that a single pervasive factor, such as an atmospheric pollutant, may be depleting the environment of thiamine at its sources, including phytoplankton and bacteria, affecting the entire food chain. To see how far the problem reaches, he is now looking at upstream terrestrial wildlife such as elk (Alces alces). Balk is also investigating whether any of several pollutants might interfere with the oxidation, hydrolysis, or synthesis of thiamine.


    Tillitt, too, is casting a wider net, searching for thiamine deficiencies in water birds in the Great Lakes and moose in Minnesota. Although he is confident that alewives were the cause of fish declines in the lakes, he’s not certain what might be driving cases of thiamine deficiency seen in species elsewhere. “If there is a chemical that somehow affects thiamine, that could be extremely dangerous,” he says. “It is very important for us to understand more about it.”


    But researchers need not invoke a pollutant to explain thiamine deficits, says Sergio Sañudo-Wilhelmy, an environmental biogeochemist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Imbalances in phytoplankton and bacteria, both of which are primary producers of thiamine and other B vitamins, could account for the problem (
    15).


    Sañudo-Wilhelmy has measured very low levels of B vitamins, including thiamine, in coastal waters around California. Other researchers have estimated similar scarcities in some areas of the open ocean (
    16). Warming waters due to climate change could explain the seawater vitamin scarcity, he says. Warmer temperatures speed bacterial growth, making the microbes consume more B vitamins than they produce—gobbling up the vitamins before the phytoplankton can take their share.


    Sañudo-Wilhelmy suggests that a slightly different imbalance could have caused thiamine deficiencies around the Baltic Sea, where nitrogen and phosphorous pollution likely play a role. Large blooms of cyanobacteria—toxic blue-green algae—are common in the Baltic Sea during the summer because of eutrophication. Work from researchers at Linnaeus University in Sweden found that zooplankton—tiny aquatic animals that feed on phytoplankton—were starved of thiamine during such blooms (
    17). As a result, the vitamin no longer gets passed up the food chain to small fish that feed on the zooplankton or to top predators that feed on the fish, says one of the study’s authors, aquatic ecologist Samuel Hylander. Sañudo-Wilhelmy says that the growing number of toxic cyanobacteria blooms occurring around the world could cause similar thiamine deficiencies elsewhere, suggesting another potential route for the problem to become widespread.


    But Sañudo-Wilhelmy says it’s too early to say if the ocean vitamin shortage he’s documented along the Pacific coast is happening elsewhere. Limited data exist on dissolved vitamin concentrations across different geographic areas and during different seasons so the researchers lack evidence of broad trends in environmental vitamin levels.


    If various kinds of imbalances are involved in causing thiamine deficiencies in different settings, the thiamine mystery might be broken down into more manageable pieces. For example, the deficiency in fish of the Great Lakes was managed by adding thiamine to the water in fish hatcheries; then the artificially bred fish were released into the lakes to boost populations. Eventually, alewife numbers also started to decline, and natural trout and salmon reproduction in the lakes began to recover (
    18). And if cyanobacterial blooms are playing a part, efforts to curb agricultural pollution could help prevent deficiencies from spiraling up the food chain.


    This much seems clear: A one-size-fits-all fix for the wider problem is unlikely. Thiamine supplements are not a realistic solution to ameliorate whole ecosystems, says Balk.


    Whether thiamine alone is the culprit or not, Balk and others are intent on collecting more clues in hopes of solving a mystery with major implications for multiple species and ecosystems. “The most important thing to do,” says Balk, “is to find the cause.”

    https://www.pnas.org/content/115/42/...AGasXyOBEJVXp0


  7. #5107
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Grilled, raw, stewed, dried, fermented, fried: squid has long been consumed with abundance in Japan, appearing in countless everyday dishes.

    Now, however, Japan’s long-running love affair with squid is in danger, with growing reports that catches this season have hit a record low, causing prices to soar.

    A drop in volumes of squid caught by Japanese fisherman has been attributed by experts to a
    combination of overfishing and rising sea temperatures due to climate change.


    One region hit particularly hard is Hakodate on Japan’s northernmost island Hokkaido, a so-called “squid town” which has long enjoyed nationwide fame as a hub for all things squid, in particular the popular Pacific flying squid.


    Despite peak squid fishing season normally taking place from June to January, as many as 90 per cent of Hakodate’s 20-strong fleet of squid fishing vessels have remained in port since October due to record low catches, according to Kyodo news agency.


    “There's no squid,” Toyoji Sato, of Hakodate, who has been fishing squid for more than 50 years, told Kyodo. “This is the first time I've ended fishing this early. Fuel costs are also high, so if I take my boat out I just sink deeper into debt.”


    Japan has long loved consuming squid in countless forms, from ikameshi, which involves simmering the seafood with rice inside, to shiokara, a particularly pungent but popular appetiser made from fermented squid innards.

    The statistics in Hakodate paint a particularly bleak picture of a squid industry in decline: fishermen reportedly caught 61,000 tonnes of Pacific flying squid in 2017, marking a 13 per cent drop compared to the previous year – and less than 30 per cent of the total squid catch 10 years earlier.


    Many of the 70 seafood processing companies in Hakodate alone are opting to diversify in the face of squid shortages, switching a focus onto alternative maritime products.


    Numerous businesses specialising in the production of squid-related treats have also been impacted by rising wholesale prices, which are reported to have doubled compared to the average year.


    Mikiya, a company famed for producing shredded squid snacks, which once depended on products sourced at its base in Hakodate, now secures up to 50 per cent of its squid from outside Japan, including Argentina, Kyodo reports.


    Yasunori Sakurai, professor of Fisheries Sciences at Hokkaido University and chair of the Hakodate Cephalopod Research Centre, has been warning fishermen about the potentially dangerous impact of climate change on Japan’s squid population for nearly two decades.


    Speaking to Reuters last year, he blamed the decline of squid on climate change resulting in a cold snap in waters where squid traditional spawn and rising temperatures in the Sea of Japan to where they migrate.



    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...d-low-catches/
    Last edited by harrybarracuda; 21-01-2019 at 12:25 PM.

  8. #5108
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Ice in Greenland is melting faster than scientists predicted.


    Research has revealed the pace of loss has increased four-fold since 2003, the Guardian reported.

    Michael Bevis, Ohio State University professor of geodynamics, was the lead author of a new research paper on the topic and said there were two major concerns.


    "We knew we had one big problem with increasing rates of ice discharge by some large outlet glaciers.


    "But now we recognise a second serious problem: increasingly, large amounts of ice mass are going to leave as meltwater, as rivers that flow into the sea."


    Glaciers in the country deposit chunks of ice into the Atlantic Ocean, which then melt. But the research shows the largest ice loss has actually taken place in a glacier-free part of Greenland.


    Since 2003, the south-west region of the island, which is mostly free of glaciers, has melted faster than the north part of the island.

    South-west Greenland is now expected to become "a major future contributor to sea level rise", the paper said.


    The paper also suggested that ice is melting as global temperatures rise, pushing up sea levels as a result. This counters the previously held thought that the biggest contributor to rising sea levels was ice breaking off glaciers.


    THE STUDY


    The research paper used data from Nasa's gravity recovery and climate experiment (called Grace) and GPS stations to assess changes in ice mass across Greenland.


    The study, which was published in
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that Greenland lost about 280 billion tons of ice a year between 2002 and 2016. That amount of ice was enough to raise the global sea level by 0.03 inches a year.


    If the entire ice sheet on Greenland melted, sea levels would rise by seven metres and drown most coastal areas.


    COASTAL AREAS AT RISK


    Coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, so this research amplifies the risk to Pacific island nations and populated areas like Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and Osaka.


    "The only thing we can do is adapt and mitigate further global warming – it's too late for there to be no effect," Bevis said.


    "This is going to cause additional sea level rise. We are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point.


    "We're going to see faster and faster sea level rise for the foreseeable future. Once you hit that tipping point, the only question is: How severe does it get?"


    RATE OF LOSS


    In 2013, Greenland's ice was melting four times faster than in 2003.


    Researchers attributed this both to rising global temperatures from climate change, and the North Atlantic Oscillation - a weather phenomenon that causes fluctuations in atmospheric pressure at sea level.


    Recently, scientists have acquired a greater understanding of how Greenland and Antarctica are reacting to a warming ocean and atmosphere,
    the Guardian reported.


    In June 2018, analysis showed that the rate of melting in Antarctica
    had tripled since 2012.


    Associate Professor Rob McKay, from Victoria University of Wellington's Antarctic Research Centre, said after the tipping points were reached at each polar ice sheet, "retreat potentially becomes unstoppable".


    Professor Christina Hulbe, from the University of Otago School of Surveying, said the work had "one clear message: we are very close to
    triggering irreversible change in Earth's polar ice sheets".


    "The threshold for irreversible ice loss in both Greenland and Antarctica is somewhere between 1.5 and 2C global mean warming. We're already at a bit more than 1C warming," she said.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/...ntists-thought




  9. #5109
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Some good has come of climate change then. Squid is disgusting, like fried rubber rings. Yuck.

  10. #5110
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    Some good has come of climate change then. Squid is disgusting, like fried rubber rings. Yuck.
    I agree but it's also a vital part of the marine food chain.

  11. #5111
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Before a heat wave in Australia last November, the country was home to an estimated 75,000 spectacled fruit bats (also known as the spectacled flying fox). The bats reside mostly in the northeast state of Queensland.


    A heat wave hit the region between November 24 to 30, 2018. On the hottest days, November 26 and 27, temperatures were above 42 degrees C (about 107 degrees F), and the effect on the fruit bats was dramatic: At the time, locals reported seeing bats fall out of trees en masse.

    Wildlife rescuers gathered the bodies and attempted to save still-surviving bats that were out in the open.


    Researchers at Western Sydney University finalized their estimates on the mass deaths just last week, saying that around 23,000 had died.


    About 10,000 black flying foxes, another bat species, died during the same two-day period.


    In Australia, spring lasts from September to November, and summer from December to February.

    Weather in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, typically tops out at about 28 degrees C (82 F) in November. The Australian Bureau of Land Management
    noted that 2018 was the fifth-hottest year on record for Queensland.


    In an
    interview with BBC news, Dr. Justin Welbergen, the ecologist who led the count, called the fruit bats "the canary in the coal mine for climate change." Bats are no more susceptible to extreme heat than other animals, but because they tend to live in closer proximity to human settlements than other wild creatures, a deadly event like this is more obvious to humans.


    "It is clear from the present data that these [heat] events are having a very serious impact on the species," Welbergen told the BBC. "And it's clear from climate change projections that this is set to escalate in the future."


    The bats were not the only casualty of last year's heat wave. Cairns, a coastal Queensland city, reached 42.6 C, a record temperature. (The previous high, 37.2 degrees C, was set in 1900.)

    Scientists
    predicted that this temperature would precipitate a coral die-off in the Great Barrier Reef later this year.


    Over 130
    bushfires burned across Australia last November as well, with thousands of residents evacuated and schools closed—a counterpart to the California wildfires in the U.S. last spring and fall.


    The heat and its side effects are unlikely to subside anytime soon. Australia is currently in the midst of yet another heat wave. The town of Noona in New South Wales
    recorded a nighttime temperature of 35.9 degrees C (96.62 F) last night, January 17—the highest minimum temperature ever recorded anywhere in Australia.

    https://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...rce=reddit.com



  12. #5112
    Thailand Expat VocalNeal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    Squid is disgusting, like fried rubber rings. Yuck.
    I read somewhere that there are more squid in the oceans than fish.

  13. #5113
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    I agree but it's also a vital part of the marine food chain.
    The Japs have form. Buying research quotas and selling whale meet for restaurants.

  14. #5114
    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by VocalNeal View Post
    I read somewhere that there are more squid in the oceans than fish.
    Who the fcuk counted them?

  15. #5115
    Thailand Expat VocalNeal's Avatar
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    not sure but it was probably squid pro quo.

    Has to do with depleted fish stocks and warmer oceans.

  16. #5116
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by VocalNeal View Post
    not sure but it was probably squid pro quo.

    Has to do with depleted fish stocks and warmer oceans.

    Apparently the Humboldt squid doesn't reach sexual maturity until 5 years, but when times are hard it can knock that down to 6 months. I don't know any fish that can do that.

  17. #5117
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    And apparently New Zealand is next.

    ADELAIDE (AFP) - Temperatures in southern Australia topped 49 degrees Celsius on Thursday (Jan 24), shattering previous records as sizzling citizens received free beer and heat-stressed bats fell from trees.


    The Bureau of Meteorology reported temperatures of 49.1 deg C north of Adelaide, while inside the city temperatures reached 46.6 deg C, a fraction above a record that had stood since 1939.

    Adelaide residents are used to sweltering days during the southern hemisphere summer, but even they struggled with the oppressive temperatures.


    More than 13 towns across South Australia have smashed their own heat records, with some of the state forecast to see temperatures of 50 degrees by the end of the day.


    The state’s health authorities early Thursday reported that 44 people had received emergency treatment for heat-related illness in the past 24 hours.

    https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/au...rature-records

  18. #5118
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    Climate change science is not finished



  19. #5119
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    Squid is disgusting, like fried rubber rings. Yuck.
    Try this recipe, it may change your opinion:

    Any doubts about Climate Change?-1371583048439-jpeg

    Accompaniment-wise, people seem to like a squeeze of lemon, but I'm not sure you can beat a really garlicky mayonnaise for dipping. You might well find the same people who squirm at the idea of tentacles don't really care for garlic either.
    Serves 4 as a starter, 2 as a main course


    400g cleaned squid, including tentacles
    Milk
    4 tbsp cornflour
    4 tbsp plain flour
    1 tsp salt
    Sunflower, vegetable or groundnut oil, to cook
    Salt flakes, to serve
    Lemon wedges or garlic mayonnaise, to serve (optional)

    1. Remove the tentacles from the squid and cut the bodies into thick rings, about 1cm in diameter, and large triangles. Score the triangles with a criss-cross pattern. Put the pieces and tentacles into a bowl and cover with milk, then cover the bowl and refrigerate for up to 8 hours (even half an hour is better than nothing).


    2. When you're ready to cook, mix together the flours and salt in a shallow container. Fill a large, heavy based pan a third full with oil and heat over a medium-high flame until a pinch of flour sizzles when it hits the oil.

    3. Drain the squid well, and perfunctorily pat dry, then drag through the flour and shake off the excess. Fry in batches for about a minute, until crisp, and slightly golden. Place on kitchen paper, sprinkle with salt, and then serve each batch as soon as they're ready, with lemon wedges or garlic mayonnaise.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Any doubts about Climate Change?-1371583048439-jpeg  
    Last edited by OhOh; 25-01-2019 at 03:45 PM.
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

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    Thailand Expat VocalNeal's Avatar
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    As the Chinese say? Rubbery

  21. #5121
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RPETER65 View Post
    Climate change science is not finished
    It's good that you are posting information that not only confirms global warming is real but says that scientists may be underestimating its effects.

    Now only if you could learn how to use that little "film strip" icon to post videos properly.

    Go on, give it a try. Just click the clink and paste the Youtube link in there.

    Any doubts about Climate Change?-rpeter65isasenileoldwanker-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Any doubts about Climate Change?-rpeter65isasenileoldwanker-jpg  

  22. #5122
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    'Tipping point' risk for Arctic hotspot


    A rapid climate shift under way in the Barents Sea could spread to other Arctic regions, scientists warn.


    The Barents Sea is said to be at a tipping point, changing from an Arctic climate to an Atlantic climate as the water gets warmer.

    A conference in Norway heard that the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea – both further to the east - are likely to become the new Arctic frontier.

    The scientists warn that it will affect ecosystems.

    It may also impact on global weather patterns, although there's no agreement on that.

    They’re concerned because the north Barents Sea has been governed by an Arctic climate since the end of the last Ice Age, 12,000 years ago.


    The Arctic Ocean has a cold, fresh surface layer which acts as a cap on a layer of warm, saltier Atlantic water beneath.

    But now in the Barents Sea there’s not enough freshwater-rich sea-ice flowing from the high Arctic to maintain the freshwater cap.


    And that’s allowing warm, salty Atlantic water to rise to the surface.


    In what’s known as a feedback loop - the more the layers mix, the warmer the surface gets. And the warmer the surface gets, the more the waters mix.


    So it’s now only a matter of time, the researchers say, before this section of the Arctic effectively becomes part of the Atlantic. It could happen in as little as a decade, they warn.


    Dr Sigrid Lind, from the Institute of Marine Research and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Norway, told the conference that if the sea stratification broke down completely, the change might be irreversible.

    “Large sea ice inflows of several consecutive years would probably be needed to rebuild the freshwater reservoir once its gone- and that's not likely given global warming and strong Arctic sea-ice loss,” she told BBC News.


    She said the shift was so rapid that the whole Barents Sea could be completely sea ice-free within a few decades - possibly even a decade. Then a new polar frontier region would probably develop further east, in the Kara Sea or Laptev Sea.


    Dr Lind explained: “This is probably the first modern example of a rapid climate shift event - a part of the Arctic domain is shifting over to the Atlantic climate regime.


    "This sort of shift happened in the Nordic Seas during the last Ice Age – and when it happened it changed very fast.

    “This shows that the Arctic is responding to the one-degree of global warming that we have today by shrinking and losing its outer part to the Atlantic domain. That's alarming."

    Dr Jeremy Wilkinson from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) told BBC News that the new findings on stratification and freshwater were vital for understanding the future of the Arctic.


    Other scientists said different factors might be significant too, like a change in wind patterns that appears to be pushing sea-ice away from the Barents region.


    The changes could affect weather patterns as far away as East Asia, and may have an effect on the jet stream, which influences so much of the UK's weather patterns. Scientists haven’t reached agreement on this yet.


    And in another puzzle, freshwater in the western Arctic seems to be increasing as it diminishes in the eastern Arctic. Scientists are still struggling to fathom the complexities of human impact on the planet.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46976040



  23. #5123
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    It's good that you are posting information that not only confirms global warming is real but says that scientists may be underestimating its effects.
    Yes. But as you well realise, he was caught up in the sensationalism, not the import of the content.

  24. #5124
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maanaam View Post
    Yes. But as you well realise, he was caught up in the sensationalism, not the import of the content.
    Nah. He just didn't understand what he was posting because he's a senile old trumpanzee.

  25. #5125
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Nah. He just didn't understand what he was posting because he's a senile old trumpanzee.

    Let me say again for those of you with short memories,I have never said that I don’t think the climate is changing. To the contrary I have stated that I am well aware of a changing climate and the possible ramifications,what I have said is that I am not convinced that humankind and their actions are the biggest causes. Now if you had any comprehension skills you would have discerned that is what the video was all about.

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