Doomsday Glacier - What's Next?

The climate emergency routinely uncovers multiple “doomsday” scenarios, events and cascade points – the Thwaites Glacier is another entry on the ledger that could send humanity back to the Middle Ages. 

The Thwaites Glacier has been called the "doomsday" glacier and the "most important" glacier in the world, BBC News explained. The glacier, roughly the size of Britain or Florida, already contributes four percent a year to global sea level rise. Not only that, it acts as a stop on the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which could raise sea levels by more than three meters (approximately 10 feet).

Thwaites hasn’t been on the top of the global disaster list because it is so remote, a factor that has limited the ability of scientist to take on-site measurements. Researchers have now made the journey and taken measurements of the water temperature below the glacier.

Researchers specifically took measurements from the glacier's grounding zone. That's the place where the glacier's ice moves off of bedrock and into the sea, NYU explained. Thwaites is especially precarious because the bed it rests on slopes downward, according to BBC News. As warm water melts the ice between the glacier's surface and the bedrock, the glacier retreats and the ice on top is more likely to break off. "The fact that such warm water was just now recorded by our team along a section of Thwaites grounding zone where we have known the glacier is melting suggests that it may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea level rise," Holland told NYU.

The ramifications of the climate emergency become more crystal clear every day - except in Washington, DC. 

                                                                                                                                                                                  Photo: NASA 

Each One the Size of Texas

An image of the Sun with the highest spatial resolution ever has been taken by the Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope. Shown above is the full field image, which is displayed in false colour and shows infrared light at 789 nm wavelength.

The granular structures in the image are convection cells, which are each about the size of the US state of Texas. Hot plasma from inside the Sun bubbles up in the bright centres of the cells. It then cools by radiating its heat and falls back into the Sun in the gaps between the cells – which are dark because they are cooler.  ---  PhysicsWorld

                                                                                                                 (Photo: NSO/AURA/NSF)  

Planting Trees Only Matters if the Trees Live

When politicians (or autocrats) plant trees as photo opportunities, things often go bad.  In Turkey, a widely ballyhooed project to plant 11 million trees in that country appears to be on its way to produce over nine million dead saplings.  Growing healthy trees is a way to impact greenhouse gases, but only if the saplings become viable trees.

“We said it was wrong to run the campaign in a period without adequate rainfall just to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Besides that, the people recruited to plant the trees were not adequately trained. If only we had been wrong,” the union’s chairman Şükrü Durmuş said.

“This is a murder. We are warning the Forestry and Agriculture Ministry once more. Over 17 years you have handed over thousands of hectares to international companies to develop as mines. You won’t fix the destruction caused by these companies by planting 11 million trees,” he said.

You can't fix the damage caused by the industrial plundering of the environment with a poorly planned and executed PR stunt.

So Sad, Tragic Loss

Coronavirus Markets In China

Will a global pandemic dampen the Chinese obsession with eating wild and exotic animals?  I would like to see the autocratic Chinese government step in and lock down the Chinese driven trade in endangered species, but since they can't even control the trade of more domestic wildlife, I don’t have much hope.

A new nationwide ban on the sale of wildlife will affect markets, restaurants and online shops. Health experts have long raised concerns about unhygienic and cramped conditions in some Chinese markets, where wild and often poached animals are packed together.

Scientific evidence that various strains of the coronavirus are directly linked to wild animals is conclusive.  The direct link to the current outbreak hasn’t been established, but it is only a matter of sorting the evidence, which will unfortunately occur after most of the victims are buried.

Health teams are working urgently to determine the origin of the disease. It is from the same family of viruses as Sars, which was passed to humans from bats by masked palm civets, and Mers, which was carried from bats to humans by camels.

Ministry of Silly Walks

The helmeted guineafowl is capable of strong flight, but it is mainly terrestrial often choosing to run rather than fly. They typically roosts in trees. 

This diurnal bird calls with a rasping, stuttering, grating "keerrrr." Lives in flocks of up to hundreds of birds, and forages on open ground

Helmeted Guineafowl are both monomorphic and monochromatic meaning that both males and females are similar in size, appearance and color.

These birds tend to form breeding pairs that are highly monogamous.

Guineafowl are mentioned in Greek mythology. Meleagros was the son of Oeneus, King of Calydon. According to legend, upon his death, his sisters were transformed into guineafowl.  --- SeaWorld

What Will Happen in the Senate?

“A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”  --- Alexander Hamilton – Federalist #65 (Lawyers, Guns & Money)

Red Sky at Morning - Take Warning

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” 

That arc does not bend by itself, its course is changed by the moral gravity we impart to the universe.  Keep in mind there are other forces that are at work to bend that moral arc away from justice.

Snow Leopards and Global Warming

In the great mountains of central Asia, the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is facing the consequences of climate change. In Pakistan the snow leopard’s range is being impacted by warmer temperatures that both reduce the population of prey animals and open the snow leopard high mountain range to common leopards (Panthera pardus). Common leopards are more aggressive than snow leopards which makes them poor neighbors in the high mountain ranges that were once the sole province of the snow leopard.

The snow leopard has a wide habitat range of about 80,000 square kilometres in Pakistan and mostly lives above the treeline. In the Hindu Kush range, it is found in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and in the Karakoram range it is found in Gilgit, Ghizer, Hunza-Nagar, Skardu and Ghanche districts. Mehmood Ghaznavi, the conservator with the government of G-B’s Parks and Wildlife Department said that the estimated population of the snow leopard in Gilgit Baltistan is around 200.

Photo traps are providing evidence that common leopards are using the same game trails as snow leopards.

“We couldn’t believe that it was the camera trap photo of a common leopard captured in prime snow leopard habitat,” Hussain said. “The common leopard has never been reported in the Chitral Gol National Park before.”

According to Hussain, field experts believe that it is likely that climate change caused the common leopard to intrude on the snow leopard’s habitat.

“There is a likelihood that the common leopard might have come from the closest common leopard habitat, but that is yet to be known. The presence of the common leopard in the snow leopard’s territory can be dangerous for the snow leopard due to its aggressive nature.”

If you interested in snow leopard conservation, check out this site.

Taal Volcano Makes Lightning

Volcanic lightning is a somewhat common phenomenon (common relative to how often volcanic eruptions take place). Volcanic lightning arises from particles of volcanic ash (and sometimes ice) ejected in the atmosphere. These particles generate static electricity within the volcanic plume, triggering a “dirty thunderstorm.” --- ZME Science

Everything They Say is a Lie

I love the first snow of the year as much as the next gal, but whoever was in charge of the White House Twitter account could only have been one of three things: mistaken, lying, or hallucinating. That’s because on Sunday, the weather in D.C. rose to a balmy 70 degrees F. The day before, January 11, was even warmer — 61 locations across the East Coast broke or tied their record high temperatures that day. The picture was actually taken about a week earlier, when a flurry of snow did reach D.C.

It’s quite possible that whoever manages Trump’s social media prescheduled the tweet last week without bothering to take a look at the weekend forecast. But it’s also possible that the Trump administration — which has rolled back environmental regulations, gutted federal science agencies, propped up a dying coal industry, and slashed funding for renewable energy — is so deeply in climate change denial that it made a point of lying about snow falling on the hottest day of winter.   ---  Grist

Not Bad On His First Day

Wolf Cukier, a 17-year-old NASA intern, distinguished himself when he discovered a planet just three days into an assignment. Originally, the teen was instructed to look into the brightness of certain stars captured by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, but he ended up finding what is now being called TOI 1338 b, a planet that’s estimated to be almost seven times bigger than the size of Earth.  --- Hypebeast

Mamma Cheetah

Hanging out in the Maasai Mara.  --- Africa Geographic

More Compassion Than A Republican

New research at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany found that African grey parrots will help their peers even if they don’t gain anything from it. The findings could help inform how altruism and prosocial behavior evolved in humans.  --- ZME Science

If only  we could find a way to enhance the behavior in humans.

Paranoia = Freedom In Idaho

In south-eastern Idaho an effort to build a wildlife crossing over a busy highway was stopped by fierce local opposition.  Just a few hundred locals spurred on by a local right wing/libertarian opinion writer in a free local “newspaper” stopped a life saving wildlife crossing.  Crossing like the one proposed for Targhee Pass are being built in many western states.  They save both wildlife and humans.

That trend is driven by financial motives as well as ecological ones. Collisions not only kill valuable game animals, they often result in property damage and even hospital bills. Marcel Huijser, a research ecologist at the Western Transportation Institute, has estimated that each North American deer crash costs society around $6,600, elk $17,500, and moose more than $30,000. Virtually every Western state has jumped on the crossing bandwagon…

The Idaho crossing project was abandoned because the locals apparently believe that they have a God given right to their scenic views and personal use of public lands. Of course, there is also the uniquely right-wing belief that the government is always lying about its motivation and is really working to restrict the rights of “real American.”

Often, unfounded speculation stoked the argument’s flames. Throughout 2017, the Island Park News reposted articles by Karen Schumacher, a blogger for right-wing sites like Redoubt News and Gem State Patriot. Schumacher, who had roots in Island Park, asserted that the overpasses were a red herring: The structures, she wrote, were insidious tools for the dispossession of private property, the vanguard of a “systematic agenda to alter where and how we live.”

So, the wildlife crossing near Targhee Pass is dead. Just as will be lots animals who try and cross the busy highway and not incidentally some humans who don’t survive those wildlife vs auto encounters.

Coal Lovers and Rupert Murdoch

Mural inTottenham, Melbourne.                             Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Rupert Murdoch is best known in the US as the man who created Fox News in order to push his right wing agenda.  He got his start in his native Australia, where his “news” outlets continue to strongly support the country’s right wing coal loving government.  Of course, since burning coal is a major factor in global warming, Murdoch’s media empire needs to ensure that climate change isn’t considered as a potential cause for Australia’s current flammable state.  Murdoch’s hand picked Prime Minister, Scott Morrison [mural above], is one of the coal industry’s chief cheerleaders.

A recent segment from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation rounded up examples of the climate denial pushed by conservative pundits in the Australian media, most of whom work for outlets owned by News Corp. For example, Peter Gleeson, a commentator at Sky News Australia and a columnist at The Courier-Mail, attacked a former fire chief who connected the fires to climate change as having “joined a cult” and “been brainwashed.” Sky News Australia host Peta Credlin not only denied the role of climate change in the fires, but also claimed that “there is no doubt ... that two decades-plus of climate change activism is making them worse.” Sky News Australia host Chris Kenny called the debate about the role of climate change in the fires “dumb,” “reckless,” and “offensive.” The Herald-Sun’s Terry McCrann attacked the media outside of Murdoch’s grasp for their coverage of the bushfires and denied their connection to climate change. In a November 6 monologue, Sky’s Andrew Bolt, a habitual climate denier who once attacked 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg as “deeply disturbed” and “strange,” called the “big global warming scare” a “con.”

They Won't Stop Until There is Nothing Left

The fossil fuel industry is at war with renewable energy everywhere in the US, but most decidedly in Republican controlled states.  The oil and gas industry gets the most bang for its bucks buying Republican politicians in states where those politicians can most effectively impact the growth of alternate sources of energy such as wind power.  In Ohio, tax payers foot the bill for fossil fuel subsidies and farmers who have been impacted by Trump's foolish tariffs are blocked from using their land for potential wind turbine revenue.  

Anti-wind websites like Master Resource and National Wind Watch are funded, often in roundabout ways, by fossil fuel interests; Wind Watch doesn’t directly receive donations from these groups, but one of its leaders, Tom Stacy, has done consulting for pro-fossil fuel think tanks. Master Resource is run by the Institute for Energy Research, which has ties to multiple oil and gas interests, including Charles Koch.

The fossil fuel industry won't quit until the planet is burned out wasteland. 

The End of Insects

The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts.

The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species.   ---  The Guardian

Jackal Flies With the Doves

“…It is a deep waterhole so the doves were sitting inside and this provided a unique opportunity for the black-backed jackal. He was able to sneak up behind the hole, almost to the edge, without the doves spotting him. He would then wind up like a spring and then literally fly over the hole, catching any doves flying up. He was very successful and caught four doves that morning.” --- Michiel Duvenhage - Africa Geographic

Spread the Alarm

An Australian magpie  has been caught on camera mimicking the sound of emergency vehicle sirens during the bushfire crisis affecting large parts of the country. Almost 400 homes have been confirmed as destroyed in New South Wales alone in the past week, with thousands of people told to evacuate coastal communities... --- The Guardian

"all the world will be in love with night"

                                                                                                                             Miguel Claro

When observed in the darkest of skies, the Milky Way galaxy can glitter and gleam with all the colors of the rainbow. This view, captured from the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve in Portugal, showcases many features of the night sky that are invisible to much of the world due to light pollution.  --- Space.com

The lights of our civilization rob most of us of nightly demonstrations of the majesty of the sky and its ability to show us how small and fragile is our place in the universe.

“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Hear Me Purr?

Lions roar, but cheetahs can only meow and purr.  

Weighing in at up to 150 pounds, cheetahs are the world's fastest land mammal. They can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles an hour in only three seconds, striking prey in the blink of an eye. But fearsome as they may be, there is something they can't do: Roar. Nope, cheetahs meow like a housecat. And, unlike their roaring cousins, cheetahs also have the ability to purr.  --- TreeHugger

Stupid, stupid, stupid

Tragedy in German zoo.

Dozens of animals including gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees were killed at a zoo in the western German city of Krefeld after a fire ripped through the monkey sanctuary in the early hours of the new year.

The fire was likely to have been caused by Chinese sky lanterns that were set off amid New Year’s Eve celebrations and landed inside the zoo, police said on Wednesday afternoon.

The level of human stupidity on display here is almost beyond understanding.

Coyotes in the Bronx

Coyote pups in the Bronx, New York    Gotham Coyote

A symbol of the American West and the victim of countless assaults by humans, coyotes have somehow managed to not just survive, but to expand their range and to live not just in the open spaces of our country, but beside us in our cities.

The shrewd canines have spread so far from their ranges in the western US that they are now making unlikely homes in cities on the east coast, including beside the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a landscaped sward frequented by visor- and chino-wearing golfers in the faintly incongruous setting of the Bronx.

Coyotes have the ability to blend into the background of our suburbs and cities.  They are wary of humans and avoid contact with us.  Yet, in my California suburb I routinely see them in the early morning walking along the street or in our local parks.  They live in my neighborhood yet move like ghosts through it.  They will take the stray cat that wanders to far from home, but their diets are so varied that cat doesn’t need to be on the menu for them to thrive. 

“We encourage all New Yorkers and visitors to respect coyotes and give them plenty of space,” said a New York City Parks spokeswoman. “Healthy coyotes that are not fed or otherwise conditioned to approach humans will do their best to avoid human contact. They can even be beneficial to humans by helping to control the rodent population.”

I strongly urge you to read Dan Flores superb study of the myth, history and reality of the coyote - Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History.

A Near Thing.....

Well, we made it through 2019, but it was a close thing.  Can we survive one more year of Trump?