The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
27-01-2021
'Resident Alien' launches from comics to Syfy this week
'Resident Alien' launches from comics to Syfy this week
Alan Tudyk took clowning classes to prepare for the extraterrestrial role.
A new TV series follows the off-beat journey of a wayfaring alien (played by beloved "Firefly" actor Alan Tudyk) who's crash-landed on Earth and must complete an ominous mission before returning home.
"Resident Alien," a new comedic drama, premieres on Syfy Wednesday (Jan. 27) at 10 p.m. EST (Jan. 28 at 0300 GMT). The series, which is based on the popular Dark Horse Comics series by co-creators Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. The show stars Tudyk ("Rogue One," "Doom Patrol") as an alien stranded in Colorado who takes on the identity of Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle. First, however, Vanderspeigle has to learn how to act like a human.
"Everything was from square one with him," Tudyk told Space.com in an exclusive interview. "Walking, sitting, dressing … he's a child in that way."
To prepare for the role of an alien masquerading as a human, Tudyk "took clowning class," he said, "which helped because clowns are supposed to be mainly like children that were never told no. They are very curious … but they're bumbling and they make mistakes."
Throughout the show, which falls somewhere between murder mystery, slapstick comedy and heartfelt drama, Vanderspeigle grapples with "the moral dilemma of his secret mission on Earth — ultimately asking the question, "Are human beings worth saving?'" a press release states.
The outrageous and sincere new series also features actors Sara Tomko ("Once Upon A Time") as nurse Asta Twelvetrees, Corey Reynolds ("The Closer") as the bold Sheriff Mike Thompson, Alice Wetterlund ("People of Earth") as local bartender D'arcy Bloom and Levi Fiehler ("Mars") as Mayor Ben Hawthorne.
Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
EXPERTS: WE SHOULD HIDE FROM THE APOCALYPSE IN UNDERGROUND CITIES
EXPERTS: WE SHOULD HIDE FROM THE APOCALYPSE IN UNDERGROUND CITIES
JULIAN HERZOG
DAN ROBITZSKI
Planning Ahead
Even if we band together as a planet and prevent some of the worst impacts of climate change, some parts of the world could gradually become so hot that people can no longer live there.
That means that millions could find themselves in search of a new home. But instead of migrating as climate refugees, a growing number of researchers and design experts suspect they could stay put, according to OneZero — by digging into the Earth and building subterranean cities beneath the ones we live in today.
Digging In
In some places, people are already doing this. OneZero lists places like Coober Pedy, Australia, where the entire town exists in 30-foot-deep trenches and caves so people can escape the unbearable desert heat.
There are underground regions of cities in Japan, Mexico, China, and Finland. More are being constructed in places like Singapore and the United States. But architect Esteban Suárez has a grander vision: massive, underground cities that resemble upside-down skyscrapers.
“We thought it would be very interesting,” Suárez told OneZero, “instead of going up with a skyscraper, what would happen if we dug down through these layers of cities?”
Not Ready
Suárez originally wanted to build his so-called Earthscraper in the heart of Mexico City to mitigate low-income workers’ unsustainably-long commutes. But the city blocked it because he would have had to dig through culturally and historically-important sites.
“We need to go vertical in this city because urban sprawl cannot continue growing,” Suárez told OneZero.
A record-breaking 28 trillion tonnes of ice — enough to cover the whole of the UK in a sheet over 300 feet thick — melted from the face of the Earth between 1994–2017.
Researchers from the University of Leeds carried out the first ever global survey of ice loss using data collected from satellites orbiting our planet.
The team found that the annual rate of ice loss increased by 65 per cent over the 23-year period — going from 0.8 trillion tons in the nineties up to 1.3 trillion tons.
The accelerating melt — which continues to get worse — has been driven largely by steep increases in losses from the polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.
Ice melt serves to raise sea levels across the globe, increases the risk of flooding to coastal communities and endangers natural habitats that wildlife depend upon.
Scroll down for video
A record-breaking 28 trillion tonnes of ice — enough to cover the whole of the UK in a sheet over 300 feet thick — melted from the face of the Earth between 1994–2017. Pictured, a stream of meltwater cuts through the ice sheet in Greenland, one of the areas examined in the study
Researchers from the University of Leeds carried out the first ever global survey of ice loss using data collected from satellites orbiting our planet, the results of which are pictured
'Although every region we studied lost ice, losses from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated the most,' said paper author and earth scientist Thomas Slater, of the University of Leeds.
The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.'
'Sea-level rise on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century.'
'Over the past three decades there's been a huge international effort to understand what's happening to individual components in Earth's ice system,' he added.
This endeavour, he explained, has been 'revolutionised by satellites which allow us to routinely monitor the vast and inhospitable regions where ice can be found.'
'Our study is the first to combine these efforts and look at all the ice that is being lost from the entire planet.'
According to Dr Slater and colleagues, the rising ice loss is due to the warming of Earth's atmosphere and oceans — which have, respectively, seen temperature increases of 0.5°F (0.26°C) and 0.2°F (0.12°C) each decade since the 1980s.
The majority — 68 per cent — of global ice loss was driven by atmospheric melting, while the remaining 32 per cent of losses have been driven by oceanic melting.
The team's survey covered 215,000 mountain glaciers spread around the planet, the polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the ice shelves floating around Antarctica and sea ice drifting in the Arctic and Southern Oceans.
'Sea ice loss doesn't contribute directly to sea level rise but it does have an indirect influence,' said paper author and earth scientist Isobel Lawrence, also of Leeds.
'One of the key roles of Arctic sea ice is to reflect solar radiation back into space which helps keep the Arctic cool.'
'As the sea ice shrinks, more solar energy is being absorbed by the oceans and atmosphere, causing the Arctic to warm faster than anywhere else on the planet.
'Not only is this speeding up sea ice melt, it's also exacerbating the melting of glaciers and ice sheets which causes sea levels to rise.'
The accelerating melt — which continues to get worse — has been driven largely by steep increases in losses from the polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. Pictured: an artist's impression of a 1 trillion tonne cube of ice — each face 10 km wide — looming over New York City. The Earth's glaciers and ice sheets have lost 28 times this amount since the early nineties
Experts have estimated that for every centimetre of sea level rise, approximately a million people are placed at risk of being displaced from their low-lying homelands.
Despite storing only one per cent of the Earth's total ice volume, glaciers were found to have contributed to almost a quarter of the global ice losses over the study period — with all glacier regions around the world losing ice.
'As well as contributing to global mean sea level rise, mountain glaciers are also critical as a freshwater resource for local communities,' said paper author and climate scientist Inès Otosaka, also of the University of Leeds.
'The retreat of glaciers around the world is therefore of crucial importance at both local and global scales.'
The full findings of the study were published in the journal The Cryosphere.
WIND-BLOWN MINERAL DUST FUELS MICROBES ACCELERATING MELT OF GREENLAND ICE SHEET
Pictured: algal blooms on Greenland's ice
Phosphorus dust blowing across the Greenland ice sheet may be fuelling ever-larger blooms of microscopic algae that lower the reflectiveness — or 'albedo' — of the ice, resulting in faster melting, a study has found.
Researchers led from the University of Leeds took samples from the southwestern margin of the Greenland ice sheet over a two-year period.
The team found that phosphorus in surface dust — contained within a mineral known as 'hydroxylapatite' is a vital nutrient for the algal growth and is responsible for a low-albedo band of ice dubbed 'the Dark Zone'.
The melt season in the Dark Zone, the team explained, has been occurring earlier and lasting longer each year since the turn of the millennium.
The hydroxylapatite is being blown out onto the ice from local rock outcrops, the researchers explained — a trend which will increase with climate change as dryland areas in the northern latitudes become drier still.
'The photosynthesis rate of the ice algae improved significantly when we provided them with a source of phosphorus,' said paper author and geomicrobiologist Jenine McCutcheon.
'Our mineralogy results revealed that the phosphorus used by ice algae may be coming from the hydroxylapatite we identified in the mineral dust.'
'It's important to understand the controls on algal growth because of their role in ice sheet darkening.'
'Although algal blooms can cover up to 78 per cent of the bare ice surfaces in the Dark Zone, their abundance and size can vary greatly over time.'
'From one season to the next, algal blooms may change and vary in intensity, making them difficult to model year-to-year.'
'The findings of this study will improve how we predict where algal blooms will happen in the future, and help us gain a better understanding of their role in ice sheet albedo reduction and enhanced melting.'
Ice Is Disappearing Across the Planet at Record Rate
Ice Is Disappearing Across the Planet at Record Rate
ByUNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
Meltstream cuts through Greenland ice sheet.
Credit: Ian Joughin
The rate of global ice loss is speeding up, according to new research.
And the findings also reveal that the Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017 – equivalent to a sheet of ice 100 meters thick covering the whole of the UK.
The figures have been published today (Monday, January 25, 2021) by a research team which is the first to carry out a survey of global ice loss using satellite data.
The team, led by the University of Leeds, found that the rate of ice loss from the Earth has increased markedly within the past three decades, from 0.8 trillion tons per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tons per year by 2017.
Ice melt across the globe raises sea levels, increases the risk of flooding to coastal communities, and threatens to wipe out natural habitats which wildlife depend on.
The findings of the research team, which includes the University of Edinburgh, University College London and data science specialists Earthwave, are published in European Geosciences Union’s journal The Cryosphere.
The research, funded by UK Natural Environment Research Council, shows that overall, there has been a 65 % increase in the rate of ice loss over the 23-year survey. This has been mainly driven by steep rises in losses from the polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.
Lead author Dr. Thomas Slater, a Research Fellow at Leeds’ Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling , said: “Although every region we studied lost ice, losses from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated the most.
“The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century.”
Dr. Slater said the study was the first of its kind to examine all the ice that is disappearing on Earth, using satellite observations .
He added: “Over the past three decades there’s been a huge international effort to understand what’s happening to individual components in Earth’s ice system, revolutionized by satellites which allow us to routinely monitor the vast and inhospitable regions where ice can be found.
“Our study is the first to combine these efforts and look at all the ice that is being lost from the entire planet.”
The increase in ice loss has been triggered by warming of the atmosphere and oceans, which have warmed by 0.26°C and 0.12°C per decade since the 1980, respectively. The majority of all ice loss was driven by atmospheric melting (68 %), with the remaining losses (32%) being driven by oceanic melting.
The survey covers 215,000 mountain glaciers spread around the planet, the polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the ice shelves floating around Antarctica, and sea ice drifting in the Arctic and Southern Oceans.
Rising atmospheric temperatures have been the main driver of the decline in Arctic sea ice and mountain glaciers across the globe, while rising ocean temperatures have increased the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet. For the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice shelves, ice losses have been triggered by a combination of rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures.
During the survey period, every category lost ice, but the biggest losses were from Arctic Sea ice (7.6 trillion tons) and Antarctic ice shelves (6.5 trillion tons), both of which float on the polar oceans.
Dr. Isobel Lawrence, a Research Fellow at Leeds’ Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, said: “Sea ice loss doesn’t contribute directly to sea level rise but it does have an indirect influence. One of the key roles of Arctic sea ice is to reflect solar radiation back into space which helps keep the Arctic cool.
“As the sea ice shrinks, more solar energy is being absorbed by the oceans and atmosphere, causing the Arctic to warm faster than anywhere else on the planet.
“Not only is this speeding up sea ice melt, it’s also exacerbating the melting of glaciers and ice sheets which causes sea levels to rise.”
Half of all losses were from ice on land – including 6.1 trillion tons from mountain glaciers, 3.8 trillion tons from the Greenland ice sheet, and 2.5 trillion tons from the Antarctic ice sheet. These losses have raised global sea levels by 35 millimeters.
It is estimated that for every centimeter of sea level rise, approximately a million people are in danger of being displaced from low-lying homelands.
Despite storing only 1 % of the Earth’s total ice volume, glaciers have contributed to almost a quarter of the global ice losses over the study period, with all glacier regions around the world losing ice.
Report co-author and PhD researcher Inès Otosaka, also from Leeds’ Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, said: “As well as contributing to global mean sea level rise, mountain glaciers are also critical as a freshwater resource for local communities.
“The retreat of glaciers around the world is therefore of crucial importance at both local and global scales.”
Just over half (58 %) of the ice loss was from the northern hemisphere, and the remainder (42 %) was from the southern hemisphere.
Reference: “Earth’s ice imbalance” by Thomas Slater, Isobel R. Lawrence, Inès N. Otosaka, Andrew Shepherd, Noel Gourmelen, Livia Jakob, Paul Tepes, Lin Gilbert and Peter Nienow, 25 January 2021, The Cryosphere. DOI: 10.5194/tc-15-233-2021
VIDEO: ONE OF NATURE'S MOST DECEPTIVE INSECTS IS HELPING BUILD A BETTER ROBOT
VIDEO: ONE OF NATURE'S MOST DECEPTIVE INSECTS IS HELPING BUILD A BETTER ROBOT
A CLICK BEETLEROLLING AROUND on its back may look pitiful — but do not be deceived. Beyond the hard exterior of their bodies lies a jack-in-the-box-like mechanism that, once snapped, springs them high into the air with a signature click!
Scientists have known of this click-trick, but what they've struggled to understand is precisely how and whythese beetles spring into the air. However, using high-speed x-ray technology and fundamental equations of motion, a team of mechanical engineers recently examined how this action takes place and what its limits are.
A better understanding of this elegant, biological mechanism not only reveals insight into a natural phenomenon — it may help roboticists super-charge the strength of future machines without increasing their "muscular" strength.
The findings were published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They might look helpless, but these beetles are poised to pop at any moment.
HERE'S THE BACKGROUND
We typically imagine springs and latches are something human-designed — doodads used to close doors or accelerate pinballs into obstacle courses. But in fact, click beetles are far from outliers when it comes to natural examples of these mechanisms.
Venus flytraps, for example, use a similar biological spring to close their leafy lips around their prey. Meanwhile, mantis shrimp can snap their claws so quickly they create tiny sonic booms in the ocean.
When it comes to click beetles (which encompass a family of beetle called Elateridae discovered by an English zoologist in 1815), scientists have studied its kinematics (the beetles' resultant acceleration) as well as the geometry of the beetles' biological latch. However, the researchers behind this new study argue the question of how this motion arises from the beetles' biology is still largely unexplored.
"Previous studies have focused on the [click beetle] jump, in this paper, we are focused on the bending maneuver referred to as the click because of the audible click it produces," Aimy Wissa, assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, tells Inverse.
"The bending movement happens in a hinge in the thorax and only takes a few milliseconds. In the paper, we identify and characterize the different phases of the click and we identify the forces governing the energy release phase of the click."
With four beetles on loan for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's permanent research sites, the team began the process of learning exactly what makes these beetles tick (or click).
The beetles' strong elastic energy through the latch mechanism as they twist their body and then release it all at once to spring upward.Wissa et al. / PNAS
WHAT THEY DID
Because only a number of milliseconds separate a still click beetle from a click beetle pirouetting through the air, the researchers used a high-speed x-ray imager to slow down the process for analysis.
The team zeroed in on a small cavity in the beetle's thorax that transforms into a latch when they begin to twist back and forth.
With this visual data, the team had three big questions they wanted to answer:
1) What are the phases of the clicking motion?
2) What are the elastic energy storage and release mechanisms in click beetles?
3) Can the energy release mechanism be inferred from the latch dynamics during the energy release phase?
WHAT THEY DISCOVERED
Examining the motion of these four beetles, the researchers identified three distinct phases of behavior that predicate the clicking spring: latching, loading, and energy release.
Based on this behavior, the researchers were able to classify this mechanical movement as "elastic recoil," which is a fast release of stored elastic energy. Essentially, as the beetle twists its body, its latch creates more and more elastic energy. This energy is eventually released when the latch breaks free, creating the springing movement.
Studying this motion, the researchers observed that the loading phase (where a peg tip was wedged into the cavity) took up to 235 milliseconds while the energy release took only 17.4 milliseconds at most.
This means that after a relatively slow build-up of elastic energy, the beetle expells it all at once for maximum recoil.
Because the beetle's writhing dance appears to be the main determinant of when how and this movement takes place, the researchers were able to closely model the oscillatory movement of the beetle post-jump as a one-degree-of-freedom system.
Being able to match the biological motion to an existing model will make it easier to replicate this motion in non-living systems as well.
"Learning about how small organisms can generate extreme acceleration will lead to breakthroughs in the field of insect-scale robotics and other small devices," Wissa tells Inverse. "Microrobots currently suffer from severe actuation limitations and cannot move nearly as fast as even the slowest [spring-equipped] biological organism"
Using a mechanism similar to that of the click beetles could enable robotics to have more "strength" without requiring stronger biological muscles.Shutterstock
WHAT'S NEXT
While the researchers were able to answer a number of important questions about this mechanism, there are still outstanding questions yet to be explored.
For example, the external latch that they identified is likely only part of an interior spring mechanism. What exactly that mechanism is and how it works is something they hope to explore in future studies.
In the future, the researchers write that they hope this understanding can help build a symbiotic relationship between advancing robotics and advancing the study of biological life as well. Eventually, this understanding could "enable the creation of a new generation of insect-inspired robots capable of generating and sustaining high-acceleration movements," the study team writes.
"Such robots will also serve as research platforms to answer critical questions about their biological counterparts."
Abstract:
Many small animals use springs and latches to overcome the mechanical power output limitations of their muscles. Click beetles use springs and latches to bend their bodies at the thoracic hinge and then unbend extremely quickly, resulting in a clicking motion. When unconstrained, this quick clicking motion results in a jump. While the jumping motion has been studied in depth, the physical mechanisms enabling fast unbending have not. Here, we first identify and quantify the phases of the clicking motion: latching, loading, and energy release. We detail the motion kinematics and investigate the governing dynamics (forces) of the energy release. We use high-speed synchrotron X-ray imaging to observe and analyze the motion of the hinge’s internal structures of four Elater abruptus specimens. We show evidence that soft cuticle in the hinge contributes to the spring mechanism through rapid recoil. Using spectral analysis and nonlinear system identification, we determine the equation of motion and model the beetle as a nonlinear single-degree-of-freedom oscillator. Quadratic damping and snap-through buckling are identified to be the dominant damping and elastic forces, respectively, driving the angular position during the energy release phase. The methods used in this study provide experimental and analytical guidelines for the analysis of extreme motion, starting from motion observation to identifying the forces causing the movement. The tools demonstrated here can be applied to other organisms to enhance our understanding of the energy storage and release strategies small animals use to achieve extreme accelerations repeatedly.
High above the North Pole, the polar vortex, a fast-spinning whirl of frigid air, is doing a weird shimmy that may soon bring cold and snowy weather to the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia for weeks on end, meteorologists say.
While it's not unusual for the polar vortex to act up, this particular reconfiguration — wandering around and possibly splitting in two — may be tied to climate change in the rapidly warming Arctic, said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Massachusetts, part of Verisk Analytics, a risk-assessment company.
"Expect a more wintery back-half of winter here in the Eastern U.S. than what we had in the first half," Cohen told Live Science.
The warmer-than-usual temperatures in the Arctic are likely throwing the polar vortex out of whack, Cohen said. The polar vortex is a vast area of low pressure that sits high above the Arctic in the stratosphere — the layer above the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere where most weather conditions happen. This low-pressure system is usually filled with cold, swirling air. During the winter, a jet stream of air that keeps the polar vortex in place sometimes weakens, allowing the vortex's chilly air to extend southward.
Here's an animated video Cohen made illustrating the process.
Cohen and colleagues have suggested that less Arctic sea-ice cover means there's more moisture from the sea migrating inland over normally dry Siberia. This moisture then turns into snow, which reflects heat back into space and is making Siberia colder than normal; that in turn disrupts a thermal band in the troposphere extending over Eurasia. This discombobulated band can then destabilize the polar vortex, causing colder winters east of the Rockies in the U.S. and in Northern Europe and East Asia, Cohen and his colleagues wrote in a 2019 review in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"Think of the polar vortex like a quiet, fast spinning top that spins in place," Cohen said. "Then, you have this energy [from the troposphere] that starts banging" on the spinning polar vortex, making it wobble and wander.
He added that this season, "snowfall across Siberia has been above normal so far. Therefore, I do believe it has contributed to the weak polar vortex."
(Image credit: NOAA)
Not everyone agrees with this increased-Siberian-snow-and-wobbly-polar-vortex connection, but it is clear that a weakened polar vortex leads to colder winters in certain parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It's also accepted that so-called sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events can weaken the polar vortex and make it teeter around. SSWs happen when large-scale atmospheric waves associated with weather systems reach into the stratosphere and disrupt the polar vortex, causing it to slow down and heat up as much as 90 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) within a few days.
Cohen noted that SSWs can be triggered by weather conditions associated with the Arctic's disappearing sea ice. SSWs happen an average of six times every 10 years, and right now we're experiencing a big SSW, The Washington Post reported.
It's possible the SSW was caused by a high-pressure, low-pressure system, said Amy Butler, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chemical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
"Over the last few weeks, there was a persistent high-pressure system over much of the North Atlantic and northern Europe/Asia, and a low-pressure system over the North Pacific," Butler told Live Science in an email. This high-pressure, low-pressure duo is known to disrupt the stratosphere, where the polar vortex lives.
It's also possible that the extreme bomb cyclone (a rapidly-forming winter storm with hurricane-strength winds) in the North Pacific a few days ago, contributed to the SSW, "but that will have to be investigated further," she said.
On Jan. 5, the polar vortex's counter-clockwise winds reversed direction (a clue that a sudden atmospheric warming event had happened) and the vortex wandered from its usual location centered over the North Pole, toward Europe and the North Atlantic, Butler said. During that time, it began to (but didn't completely) split, Cohen said.
The polar vortex might split further in about 10 days, "but it's unclear if this will happen," Butler said. "Forecast models struggle with predicting a splitting of the vortex more than a week in advance."
Disruptions to the polar vortex are key for forecasts, as about two weeks after they happen, the troposphere gets a wallop of weird weather, which can last for weeks. Because of this week's polar vortex disruption, "there's indications we'll see some colder weather within two weeks … in the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia," Cohen said.
For now, it's up in the air whether that means snowstorms or a rash of cold air, he said.
Meanwhile, "warmer-than-normal conditions can also occur over the Canadian Arctic and subtropical Asia and Africa," Butler said. "These effects could potentially persist for 4-6 weeks after the sudden stratospheric warming."
Megalodons – the extinct giant sharks that lived in most of Earth’s oceans about 3 million years ago – gave birth to babies that were larger than adult humans, scientists say.
Megalodons are the biggest predatory sharks ever discovered.
Made famous by the 2018 blockbuster “The Meg,” the largest predatory shark ever discovered, the megalodon, is a bit of a mystery. We know it lived between 15 and 3.6 million years ago and it reached at least 45 feet (14 meters) in length, more than double the size of an adult great white. But learning any more about the giant shark requires a bit of detective work.
Because of its soft cartilaginous skeleton, only a few parts of the shark’s body are mineralized and preserved, including its teeth, skull and spine. This means the fossil record is very poor for this animal. Unsurprisingly, the predator’s 7-inch (17-cm) teeth have received a lot of attention from researchers. But in a newly published study, Professor Kenshu Shimada of DePaul University and colleagues sought clues elsewhere.
By examining the spine of the now extinct megalodon, the team found it gave live birth to babies 6.5 feet (2 meters) long, larger than an average adult human. Exactly how the babies got so big was likely due to cannibalism, eating their unhatched siblings in the womb.
Secrets in the spine
Like humans, sharks have a spine made up of lots components called vertebrae, which grow as the animal gets older. The researchers measured the vertebra of a megalodon from the Miocene epoch, which lasted from 5 to 23 million years ago.
By comparing it to modern great white sharks, the team estimated that the megalodon it came from was around 30 feet (9 meters) long when it was alive, but they didn’t stop there. Sharks deposit rings of hard tissue on their vertebra each year, and like the trunk of a tree these can be used to estimate age.
To count these rings inside the scientists would have had to cut through the fossil, damaging it forever. The solution was to use detailed X-ray scanning to study the internal structures, without causing any harm to the priceless specimen, revealing this shark died when it was 46 years old.
Megalodon babies grew bigger than adult humans by eating their siblings in the womb.
Looking down through the layers, the team could see how large this vertebra was when the shark was born. Astonishingly, the size estimate at the first growth ring imply the shark was two meters (over 6 feet) when born, meaning it was larger than an average adult human at birth.
Some sharks lay eggs, while others give birth to live young. In most sharks, however, the eggs hatch inside the mother, where the young feed on the egg yolk and fluids that she secretes until they are born fully formed.
The enormous birth size estimate for this particular megalodon provides strong evidence that this species had the same reproductive mode, with a great deal of investment in a smaller number of huge offspring. The dark secret of the megalodon is that to achieve this size in the uterus, the developing young must have been eating a lot.
Eating their siblings
It is very likely, this new study argues, that the babies’ growth was fueled by cannibalism of their unhatched siblings, a sinister conveyor belt of high protein snacks for hungry pups.
It is unknown exactly how many megalodon embryos were produced. In basking sharks today, millions of eggs are created and sent to be fertilized. The hatched embryos begin to eat the surrounding eggs and in some cases, like the sand tiger shark, they eat other embryos too. Sharks can hold one or more pups in each of their two uteri, so it is likely at least two megalodons were born at a time.
This grim survival mechanism is not unique. All living sharks of the lamniform order, a group which includes great white, mako, and thresher sharks, use this strategy, which has existed for at least 70 million years.
This study also conservatively estimates the life expectancy of the species at 88-100 years old, using their spine data and well-established growth patterns of the teeth. This is in line with estimated ages for great white and whale sharks, only falling short of the record breaking 500-year-old Greenland sharks, known to live life in the slow lane of cold northern seas.
It seems the start of a megalodon’s life was a tale of two halves. They were protected by a wonderful mother sacrificing time and energy to her pups, while they wrought havoc in the womb.
The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for many decades, and scientists have just delivered their verdict on whether we'd be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not.
The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which we can analyse. But if we're unable to comprehend it, it's impossible to create such a simulation.
Rules such as 'cause no harm to humans' can't be set if we don't understand the kind of scenarios that an AI is going to come up with, suggest the authors of the new paper. Once a computer system is working on a level above the scope of our programmers, we can no longer set limits.
"A super-intelligence poses a fundamentally different problem than those typically studied under the banner of 'robot ethics'," write the researchers.
"This is because a superintelligence is multi-faceted, and therefore potentially capable of mobilising a diversity of resources in order to achieve objectives that are potentially incomprehensible to humans, let alone controllable."
Part of the team's reasoning comes from the halting problem put forward by Alan Turing in 1936. The problem centres on knowing whether or not a computer program will reach a conclusion and answer (so it halts), or simply loop forever trying to find one.
As Turing proved through some smart math, while we can know that for some specific programs, it's logically impossible to find a way that will allow us to know that for every potential program that could ever be written. That brings us back to AI, which in a super-intelligent state could feasibly hold every possible computer program in its memory at once.
Any program written to stop AI harming humans and destroying the world, for example, may reach a conclusion (and halt) or not – it's mathematically impossible for us to be absolutely sure either way, which means it's not containable.
"In effect, this makes the containment algorithm unusable," says computer scientist Iyad Rahwan, from the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany.
The alternative to teaching AI some ethics and telling it not to destroy the world – something which no algorithm can be absolutely certain of doing, the researchers say – is to limit the capabilities of the super-intelligence. It could be cut off from parts of the internet or from certain networks, for example.
IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES
image captionElon Musk, chief executive of rocket-maker Space X, also fears artificial intelligence
The new study rejects this idea too, suggesting that it would limit the reach of the artificial intelligence – the argument goes that if we're not going to use it to solve problems beyond the scope of humans, then why create it at all?
If we are going to push ahead with artificial intelligence, we might not even know when a super-intelligence beyond our control arrives, such is its incomprehensibility. That means we need to start asking some serious questions about the directions we're going in.
"A super-intelligent machine that controls the world sounds like science fiction," says computer scientist Manuel Cebrian, from the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development. "But there are already machines that perform certain important tasks independently without programmers fully understanding how they learned it."
"The question therefore arises whether this could at some point become uncontrollable and dangerous for humanity."
I was looking at Helioviewer for the most recent sun photos and found something that really intrigued me. A glitch of two suns uniting to become one. Sure this is a glitch, but the real question is...a glitch from the satellite, or a glitch from a simulated universe? Yes, I do believe it has a high chance of being evidence that we live in a simulated universe. Even Scientific American states, "Do we live in a simulation? Chances are about 50–50." And then Scientific America makes one final statement deciding on a conclusion about us living in a simulation, "Maybe we are living in base reality after all—The Matrix, Musk and weird quantum physics notwithstanding."
All I am saying here is please consider the possibilities that what we see and what we are told exist might be something totally different. If 50% of the worlds scientists are on the edge about this...then there is defiantly something to the theory.
By Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist
The Earth’s magnetic field appears to be shifting and geologists don’t know why.
Like most spinning systems, such as stars and planets, the Earth’s magnetic field is assumed to be generated through the motion of electrically conducting fluids – such as a liquid iron core as is thought to be the case for the Earth. All being well, in a perfect idealized ‘physics’ world, the magnetic field would align with the axis of spin. However, the reality is that the Earth’s magnetic field is aligned at an 11-degree angle to the spin axis, hovering somewhere over Canada. The exact location is variable and over the last 180 years the magnetic north pole has been migrating northwestward with movements of up to 25 miles per year.
Variation of the poles is normal and, in some cases, can result in complete reversal of the poles. This can be seen in the magnetic fingerprints stored in ancient rocks, which show that the poles have flipped every 200,000 to 300,00 years for the last 20 million years. The last flip occurred around 780,000 years ago so some say we are well over due for a flip! If a flip did occur, then our north compass would point towards the south pole and vice versa. This could result in some confusion, especially for animals with internal compasses, such as birds. As well, when a flip has occurred in the past it has been associated with a temporary weakening of the field, which would remove the capabilities of Earth’s protective shield exposing us to increased levels of radiation. Read more here.
Understanding the magnetic field in all its complexities has been progressing with the continuous development of computer simulations – however it still has a long way to go in furthering our understanding and reaching a satisfactory predictive model.
The World Magnetic Model (WMM) utilizes these computer simulations to spatially represent the Earth’s magnetic field. All modern navigation systems rely on it – from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google maps on smart phones. Its accuracy is paramount and is therefore updated every 5 years to account for the latest variations. The next update was scheduled for 2020, however, recently the magnetic field has been changing so rapidly and erratically that it has to be updated now – with the update set for the end of this month!
In the unified physics perspective all fields and forces are the result of a fundamental toroidal dynamic. The magnitude of the force and the associated effects of the field will depend on the characteristics of the system and will thus be of varying significance. The Earth is spinning and will therefore have a magnetic field which can be measured in terms of the exerted torque. Typically, the magnetic field will be aligned with the spin axis of the planet or spinning system. However, both internal disturbances and/or external perturbations could affect both the local and global symmetry and overall alignment, which is what we could be experiencing now. Maybe the unified physics approach can help shed some light on these complexities. Watch this space!
From the “This is probably not a good thing but aren’t they cute?” files comes news out of Africa of the discoveries of two dwarf giraffes – short-legged males half the size of normal giraffes. Conservationists found the first in a national park in Uganda in 2015 and the second on a private farm in Namibia in 2018. Their discoveries have been kept quiet to protect the unusual creatures, but Michael Brown, a conservation science fellow with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute who discovered the Ugandan dwarf, recently let the tiny giraffes out of their big bags with a paper in the journal BMC Research Noteson the condition both suffer from – skeletal dysplasia.
“Skeletal dysplasias, cartilaginous or skeletal disorders that sometimes result in abnormal bone development, are seldom reported in free-ranging wild animals. Here, we use photogrammetry and comparative morphometric analyses to describe cases of abnormal appendicular skeletal proportions of free-ranging giraffe in two geographically distinct taxa: a Nubian giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis) in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda and an Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) on a private farm in central Namibia.”
Normal baby giraffes seen here) have the same proportions as adults.
While they’re both giraffes (photos here), Brown points out that they represent different subspecies (there are nine subspecies of giraffes) – the Nubian giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis) is found in Uganda, Kenya, eastern South Sudan and southwestern Ethiopia, while the Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) roams northern Namibia, southwestern Zambia, Botswana, and western Zimbabwe. While normally reaching 18.7 ft. (5.7 m) in height, Uganda’s “Gimli” (named for the dwarf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy – did you really need to be told?) is only 9-foot-4-inches (2.8 m), while Namibia’s Nigel is only 8-1/2 feet tall (2.6). As The New York Times reports, the giraffes have seemingly normal necks but extremely short legs, making them look like normal giraffe bodies on horse legs.
“It’s easy to imagine how this might make them more susceptible to predation since they lack the ability to effectively run and kick, which are two of the giraffe’s most effective anti-predator tactics. Additionally, given the mechanics of giraffe mating, I’d speculate that for both of these giraffes, mating would be physically challenging.”
Cute but not exactly conducive to survival in the wild or creating future generations of Gimli and Nigel juniors, says Dr. Brown. For one thing, since they’re both males, they would have to attempt to mate with females nearly double their height – a feat that would get millions of views on YouTube but not much, if any, success. Besides, giraffes in general aren’t exactly doing well as a species and even the fittest, tallest and fastest are still having a tough time outrunning their biggest enemy – humans.
A look at how big normal giraffes really are.
“Although seldomly observed in wild animals, cases of skeletal dysplasia in captive animals have been associated with inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity.”
Brown and his colleagues could not determine the cause of Gimli’s and Nigel’s dwarfism, so they’ve been trying to monitor them to look for clues. That has proven to be difficult – it’s tough to track little giraffes. While Nigel was seen in July 2020, Gimli has been missing since March 2017. Brown hopes that both giraffes will show up again soon so he can “get some interesting stories and neat little wrinkles about how animals that have these types of conditions cope with changing environments.”
Let’s hope they’re not just coping but thriving and that it’s not our environment itself that caused their skeletal dysplasia.
2020’s science superlatives include the oldest, highest and grossest discoveries
2020’s science superlatives include the oldest, highest and grossest discoveries
The earliest known modern bird and other record-breaking animals are among the highlights
Vertebrate paleontologist Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge holds a 3-D printed skull of Asteriornis maastrichtensis, also known as the “Wonderchicken,” which lived nearly 67 million years ago and is the earliest known modern bird.
From the biggest merger of black holes to the world’s oldest string — fashioned by Neandertals, no less — discoveries in 2020 set new records that amazed and inspired.
1. Highest-temperature superconductor
After more than a century’s wait, scientists have found the first superconductor that works near room temperature. Superconducting up to about 15° Celsius (59° Fahrenheit), it’s made by squeezing carbon, hydrogen and sulfur between two diamonds and zapping the compound with a laser (SN: 10/14/20). The new material allows current to flow without any energy loss, but only at high pressures, which means practical applications are still a distant vision.
To make the first superconductor that works near room temperature, physicists squeezed to high pressure a material between the tips of two diamonds.ADAM FENSTER
2. Oldest, biggest Maya monument
Underneath a previously unexplored site in Mexico called Aguada Fénix, archaeologists uncovered an enormous raised ceremonial structure (SN: 6/3/20). Built about 3,000 years ago and featuring a 1,400-meter-long rectangular plateau with a platform longer than four American football fields, the discovery shows that the Maya civilization built big from its beginnings.
The ancient Maya site of Aguada Fénix, shown in this 3-D rendering, had a ceremonial plateau with a platform and mound in its center.TAKESHI INOMATA
3. Best evidence for anyons
Theoretical physicists have long predicted the existence of anyons, a type of bizarre quasiparticle resulting from the movements of electrons that together behave as a particle. In a mind-twisting discovery, physicists braided anyons, which exist only in two dimensions, by looping them around one another within complex layers of materials (SN: 7/9/20). The resulting disturbances observed in the 2-D sheets of material suggest that the quasiparticles are real.
4. Earliest modern bird
The nearly 67-million-year-old fossilized “Wonderchicken” (also known as Asteriornis maastrichtensis) is the oldest modern bird ever found, meaning that its descendants survived the asteroid impact that wiped out nonavian dinosaurs and led to the birds we see today (SN: 3/18/20). Wonderchicken did indeed look something like a chicken, if it were crossed with a duck and shrunk to the size of a quail.
5. Grossest discovery
For the first time, researchers observed a snake gnawing a hole in a toad’s belly, slithering inside and gorging on the innards — all while the toad was alive (SN: 10/2/20). The snake may have been avoiding poison that the toad releases from its neck and back, or finding a way to eat a meal too big to swallow whole.
After chewing a hole into the belly of a toxic toad, a small-banded kukri snake shoved its head inside to eat.WINAI SUTHANTHANGJAI, H. BRINGSØE ET AL/HERPETOZOA 2020
6. Oldest string
Not only was this scrap of cord handmade more than 40,000 years ago, but the hands that made it belonged to Neandertals, close human relatives who don’t often get props for creativity. The string, made from bark fibers, was found clinging to an ancient tool discovered in France (SN:4/9/20).
7. Biggest black hole merger
A detection of gravitational waves from two colliding black holes led to a bevy of records (SN: 9/2/20). It’s the first definitive evidence that midsize black holes — those with a mass between 100 and 100,000 times that of the sun — exist. The resulting merger is the most massive spotted so far using gravitational waves, as well as the farthest (17 billion light-years from Earth) and the most energetic: It radiated the equivalent in energy of about eight times the sun’s mass.
Two black holes orbited each another, sending out ripples of gravitational waves (illustrated in blue and pink in this computer simulation) before merging to form the first definitive example of a midsize black hole.DEBORAH FERGUSON, KARAN JANI, DEIRDRE SHOEMAKER, PABLO LAGUNA/GEORGIA TECH, MAYA COLLABORATION
8. Record-breaking animals
This year saw several record-breaking animal achievements, from the highest-living mammal — a yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse found 6,739 meters above sea level in South America (SN: 7/29/20) — to the longest dive by a marine mammal, a nearly four-hour plunge by a Cuvier’s beaked whale (SN: 9/23/20). There was also the coldest bird, the black metaltail hummingbird, which chills to about 3° Celsius (37° Fahrenheit) overnight to conserve energy (SN: 9/8/20).
Researchers captured a yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus rupestris) at a record altitude of 6,739 meters, or 22,100 feet, above sea level. Jay Storz, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and mountaineer Mario Pérez Mamani discovered the animal at the summit of Volcán Llullaillaco, a dormant volcano on the border of Chile and Argentina.
Everyone needed a respite from 2020, and tales of discovery provided a happy distraction from the worries of the day. Here are a few reminders that we still live in a world full of wonders.
1. Flowers at the South Pole
Antarctica was once home to a diverse rainforest. The unearthing of traces of vegetation in 90-million-year-old sediments off the coast of West Antarctica shows just how radically different the planet was during the age of dinosaurs, with conifers, ferns and blooming flowers where an ice sheet sits today (SN: 4/1/20).
Roughly 90 million years ago, a diverse rainforest (shown in this artist’s reconstruction) flourished within about 1,000 kilometers of the South Pole.J. MCKAY/ALFRED WEGENER INSTITUTE (CC BY 4.0)
2. Life finds a way
Researchers are still identifying new species and cataloging the amazing diversity of life on Earth. This year saw the discovery that the sparkly “Elvis worm” of the deep sea is actually four different species (SN: 5/25/20). Other scientists found a bonanza of 10 new bird species and subspecies on remote Indonesian islands (SN: 1/9/20). And the first complete count of plant species on New Guinea revealed more than 13,600 species of vascular plants, the most of any island on Earth (SN: 8/18/20).
New Guinea’s impressive array of floral diversity includes this Syzygium plant, a member of the myrtle family.YEE WEN LOW, R. CÁMARA-LERET ET AL/NATURE 2020
3. Raining reptiles
During a cold snap in southern Florida, lizards started falling from trees, landing legs-up (SN: 10/30/20). The reptiles weren’t hurt, just so cold that they couldn’t move and lost their grip. Oddly, this may be good news for the six lizard species scientists examined. The ability to withstand temperatures down to about 5.5° Celsius may suggest some resilience to extreme weather caused by climate change.
This iguana fell out of a tree in Key Biscayne, Fla., after a cold snap in January. Scientists have learned that such lizards are more tolerant of the cold than previously thought.BRETT PIERCE
4. Super chill
Hot water can sometimes freeze more quickly than cold, a baffling phenomenon called the Mpemba effect. Scientists couldn’t explain it — and weren’t sure it was even real. Now researchers have demonstrated the bizarre effect for the first time in the laboratory by cooling glass beads as a proxy for the more complex freezing process of water. In some conditions, the researchers say, materials can take a cooling “shortcut” that allows warmer objects to cool faster than colder ones (SN: 8/7/20).
Astronomers have found the edges of the Milky Way, for the first time showing its enormous span and potentially helping to gauge its heft. Our home galaxy stretches almost 2 million light-years across, more than 15 times as wide as the Milky Way’s spiral disk of stars and planets (SN: 3/23/20). Beyond that disk lies a broad stretch of gas surrounded by a vast halo of invisible dark matter.
The vastness of the Milky Way (shown in a gamma-ray image) seems almost immeasurable, but this year, astronomers put limits on our home galaxy’s bounds.FERMI LAT COLLABORATION/DOE AND NASA
5. Go fly a snake
Paradise tree snakes can fling themselves 10 meters or more through the air, and engineers have now figured out how they stay aloft. Once the snakes are in the air, they undulate both side to side and up and down, giving them the stability needed to glide (SN: 6/29/20).
Scientists captured the undulating motion of paradise tree snakes as they glide through the sky. A computer simulation based on high-speed video shows that the undulation is necessary for stable flight.
6. Floats our boat
Here was a chance to witness the seemingly impossible: tiny toy boats floating along both the top and bottom of a levitating liquid. Physicists made this magic happen by shaking a container of liquid, thus keeping a fluid layer aloft above a layer of air and allowing the inverted flotation (SN: 9/2/20).
Physicists knew it was possible to keep a layer of liquid levitated over a cushion of air by vigorously shaking the layers up and down in a container. But new lab experiments have revealed a surprising effect of that antigravity trick. Toy boats and other objects are able to float along the bottom surface of a levitated liquid as well as its top.
7. Will to survive
One inspiring creature just refused to accept being eaten. The Regimbartia attenuata water beetle is the first prey known to survive a trip through a frog’s entire digestive system, not just by taking a ride (like the fish eggs found this year to survive ducks’ digestive systems) but by actively escaping through the back door (SN: 8/3/20; SN: 6/29/20).
About two hours before this video begins, this pond frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus) ate a water beetle (Regimbartia attenuata). After traversing the digestive tract, the beetle emerges from the back end of the amphibian, alive. It’s the first documented example of prey actively escaping a predator through the digestive system.
8. Everybody smile
From grins to grimaces, facial expressions may be universal across human cultures, and from ancient times to the modern day. Just by looking at the faces of sculptures crafted between 3,500 and 600 years ago, without the context of the rest of the sculpture, present-day people correctly interpreted expressions such as anger in depictions of combat and pain in sculptures of people being tortured (SN: 8/19/20).
This ancient sculpture of a beaming Maya woman holding a child was among the artworks included in a study of universal facial expressionsPRINCETON UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM 2003-26, GIFT OF G.G. GRIFFIN
9. Meet PigeonBot
A robotic bird made with real pigeon feathers can change the shape of its wings by fanning its feathers out or gathering them in, making for more birdlike flight. Using the robot, scientists discovered that a bird can steer into a turn by bending just one “finger” on one of its wings (SN: 1/16/20).
A robotic pigeon that can change its wing shape like a real bird paves the way for creating more agile aircraft, and offers a new way to study bird flight.
10. It’s alive!
Putting Rip Van Winkle to shame, microbes that had been buried in seafloor sediments for more than 100 million years revived and multiplied. All the microbes needed was food to pull them from their dormant state (SN: 7/28/20).
Seafloor sediment from beneath the Pacific Ocean contains still-living microbes (green in this microscopy image) that are more than 100 million years old.JAMSTEC
How life originated on Earth continues to fascinate scientists, but it's not easy peering back billions of years into the past. Now, evidence is growing for a relatively new hypothesis of how life began: with a very precise mix of RNA and DNA.
RNA and DNA both determine the genetic make-up of all biological life, with DNA acting as a genetic blueprint and RNA as a blueprint reader or decoder. For a long time, it was thought that RNA developed on Earth first, with DNA evolving afterwards – but mounting evidence suggests they may have emerged at the same time and both been involved in kickstarting life on the planet.
The latest study to back up this idea explains how the simple compound diamidophosphate (DAP) – which may have predated life on Earth – can knit together DNA building blocks called deoxynucleosides into basic DNA strands.
"This finding is an important step toward the development of a detailed chemical model of how the first life forms originated on Earth," says chemist Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy form Scripps Research in California.
The findings add credence to the idea that both DNA and RNA developed together from the same sort of chemical reactions at the beginning of life on our planet, and that the first self-replicating molecules could have been mixes of both these nucleic acids – not just RNA, as suggested in the more established 'RNA world' hypothesis.
One of the big issues with the idea that RNA alone gave rise to life on Earth is how RNA was able to go through the necessary self-replication process – RNA usually requires enzymes to split, which evolved after RNA.
From what we know so far, it seems that RNA had some kind of helping hand in engineering life – and the latest experiments show that DNA could well have been it, creating "chimeric" molecular strands that can separate more easily than RNA alone.
The series of lab tests run by the researchers simulated what might have happened before the beginnings of life on Earth, and show how DAP could have feasibly formed basic DNA in much the same way as RNA can come together from chemical building blocks.
"We found, to our surprise, that using DAP to react with deoxynucleosides works better when the deoxynucleosides are not all the same but are instead mixes of different DNA letters such as A and T, or G and C, like real DNA," says chemical biologist Eddy Jiménez, from Scripps Research.
We may never know for sure whether DNA helped RNA to form the first lifeforms on our planet, considering this happened billions of years ago, but our understanding of these processes continues to develop.
The research isn't just useful in terms of how it relates to the origins of life, either – insight into the RNA-DNA relationship can have a whole host of applications in modern chemistry and biology.
"Now that we understand better how a primordial chemistry could have made the first RNAs and DNAs, we can start using it on mixes of ribonucleoside and deoxynucleoside building blocks to see what chimeric molecules are formed – and whether they can self-replicate and evolve," says Krishnamurthy.
Humans often like to relish the fact that they’re the most intelligent creatures in the animal kingdom. Sure, a generous brain-to-body-mass ratio can be a nice ego boost, but let’s not kid ourselves. After all, there are birds that act more reasonably and in cleverer ways than some humans whom I know personally. That may sound like an exaggeration, but wait until you learn what corvids, particularly crows and ravens, are capable of pulling off.
Crows and ravens may look very similar to the untrained eye, but their appearance and behavior clearly distinguish them from one another once you know where to look.
Compared to ravens, crows are less shiny and smaller. Crows also prefer to live in densely human-populated areas like urban landscapes, whereas ravens would much rather forage in wilder areas. However, if you really want to tell the two apart look at the bill and tail. Crows have smaller and flat bills, while those of ravens are bigger, more powerful and curved. Crow tails are fan-shaped while ravens have wedge-shaped ones.
Both birds are extremely intelligent for their body size, though, and extremely resourceful given they can only count on their bills to manipulate objects and the world around them. Yup, it’s easy to do smart things when you have opposable thumbs.
1. Crows and ravens use tools, but also make their own tools, sometimes using other tools they manufactured earlier
A crow using its tool to stir out some food. Image credits: James St. Clair.
You can tell right away that a species is capable of complex cognitive abilities when it uses tools. Corvids not only know how to employ tools, but they also make their own.
Scottish researchers at the University of St Andrews observed New Caledonian crows — birds which live on the remote tropical island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific — fashioning hooked twigs to stir beetles from their holes.
“It’s a painstaking sequence of behaviours,” explains lead author Dr. James St Clair, from the School of Biology, University of St Andrews. “Crows seek out particular plant species, harvest a forked twig, and then – firmly holding it underfoot – carve, nibble and peel its tip, until it has a neat little hook.”
According to Clair and colleagues, hooked tools yield between 2 and 10 times more food than a straight twig. That’s a huge difference, and the crows likely recognized the improved yield.
In another mind-boggling example, researchers have witnessed not one, but two crows inserting sticks into objects to allow for easier transport. Some of these objects were too cumbersome to carry by beak alone, which is telling of the birds’ ingenuity.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden witnessed two crows inserting sticks into objects that were too cumbersome to lift by beak alone. During four instances, the crows slipped a wooden stick inside a metal nut or into the hole of a large wooden ball. In all instances, both stick (carrying tool) and the hooked objects were flown away by the crows, the researchers reported in the journal Animal Cognition.
In a 2002 study, researchers followed a captive New Caledonian crow called Betty that took a piece of wire, bent it into a hook, then retrieved some food that was otherwise out of reach. Betty used the wire after another crow had taken all the available hooks.
Alex Taylor, a researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, believes that the birds are using a sort of “mental template matching,” forming a mental picture of the tool-making process they’d seen in another bird, then copying it.
This is quite akin to how humans learn and pass on new skills between one another — through cultural transmission.
“Under the mental template matching hypothesis, New Caledonian crow tool designs could be passed on to subsequent generations if an individual used or observed the products of tool manufacture (such as their parents’ tools), formed a mental template of this type of tool design (a mental representation of some or all of the tool’s properties), and then reproduced this template in their own manufacture,” Taylor and colleagues wrote in a study published Scientific Reports.
This New Caledonian crow made a hook out of a paper card from scratch in order to receive a reward.
Credit: Sarah Jelbert
During one logic test, ravens had to reach a hanging piece of food by pulling up a string, anchoring it with its claw, and repeating until the food was within reach. Many ravens got the food on the first try, some within 30 seconds. In the wild, ravens have been seen pushing rocks towards people to keep them from climbing to their nests, stealing fish by pulling a fisherman’s line out of holes in the ice, imitating wolves in order to attract them, and playing dead beside a beaver carcass to scare other ravens away from a delicious feast.
2. Crows remember and respond to people’s faces (and can hold a grudge)
Most birds or animals scatter when a human is approaching no matter what. However, crows only fly away when people are actually heading their away, as opposed to just strolling past them. But there’s much more to it than meets the eye.
A study published in the journal Ethology, led by Barbara Clucas of Humboldt State University, revealed new dimensions in the crow’s social reasoning. Namely, the researchers found that crows can recognize, respond and adapt their behavior to specific human faces.
In one of their experiments, the researchers separated into two groups, each wearing a different type of mask. One of the groups would trap crows in the park, while the other would just pass crows by.
Five years later, the researchers returned to the park with their mask on. Lo and behold, birds present at the original trapping events remembered which masks corresponded to being captured—and they passed this information to their young and other crows. All the crows responded to the sight of a researcher wearing a trapping mask by immediately mobbing the individual and shrieking.
“It’s one thing to learn from one’s own experience and another to observe that happening to other individuals and infer it could happen to you,” John Marzluff of the University of Washington, a co-author of the paper explained.
Seeing crows communicate abstract information and symbols (the particular type of mask associated with trapping) to other crows that did not have first hand, affective information is truly impressive.
When the crows viewed human faces that they associated with threat or care, the birds had increased activity in the amygdala, thalamus, and brain stem—areas related to emotional processing and fear learning. In response to threatening faces, areas that regulate perception, attention, and fleeing also lit up. That’s quite similar to how humans process faces in the brain.
Corvids don’t just hold grudges, though. Researchers found that when they behaved fairly with crows, the birds would bring back shiny objects as a token of gratitude for being nice to them.
3. Ravens use gestures to point out things and communicate
A male raven showing off an object in his beak to his peers. Typically, ravens will point out objects to females. Credit: Thomas Bugnyar.
In a 2011 study, German and Austrian researchers described how ravens would use their beaks in the same manner a human might use their hands to point out objects such as moss, stones, and twigs.
Besides gesturing, the ravens also interacted with their peers using various objects, touching or clasping their bills together, or by manipulating the item together.
“Most exciting is how a species, which does not represent the prototype of a ‘gesturer’ because it has wings instead of hands, a strong beak and can fly, makes use of very sophisticated nonvocal signals,” Simone Pika of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Munich, Germany told LiveScience.
Pika believes that ravens could offer a unique glimpse into the origin of gestures in humans.
“Gesture studies have too long focused on communicative skills of primates only. The mystery of the origins of human language, however, can only be solved if we look at the bigger picture and also consider the complexity of the communication systems of other animal groups,” the researcher said.
4. Crows understand water displacement better than some children
In Aesop’s famous fable, The Crow and the Pitcher, a thirsty crow finds a pitcher with a bit of water left in the bottom. Alas, the bird’s beak isn’t long enough to reach it. But the clever crow is steadfast and drops stones into the pitcher until the water comes to it.
Turns out this is no fiction. A 2014 study showed that crows understand water displacement at the level of a 5- to 7-year-old-child. For instance, when researchers put pieces of meat floating in a long narrow glass, the crows figured out that they could add objects to the container to raise the water level and bring the treat to them. You can see them in action in the video below.
5. Ravens can tell when people are spying on them (and can get paranoid)
When people suspect they’re being watched, they tend to be very self-conscious. And if they don’t want to be seen, they will minimize their movements. This level of abstraction was thought to be unique to humans, but a 2014 study published in Nature Communicationsshowed the ravens are also aware when they’re being spied upon.
During one experiment, ravens were placed in adjacent tiny rooms, separated by a window. Initially, the window was left uncovered so each raven could see where its neighbor was hiding food. Later, the window was covered, leaving only a small peephole, which the ravens quickly learned they could use to see but also be seen through.
The researchers played an audible track from one of the cages which sounded like a raven was in the process of hiding food (scratching, pecking, dirt being displaced). Only when the peephole was left uncovered did the neighboring raven bother to take extra care in hiding its food. The bird hurried to hide the food and once the audio track stopped playing, the raven returned to the hiding spot to improve the concealment. If the peephole was closed the raven was careless, suggesting it understood that no one could track its actions.
6. Crows can solve highly complex puzzles
BBC Two journalists put corvid intelligence to the ultimate test by setting up the most complex animal puzzle ever. Captured wild crows completed eight individual steps, which they had to solve in a specific order, to gain access to a food reward. To do so, the crows had to collect tools and interact with puzzles to move to the next step. Watch the video of the experiment — it’s crazy good.
7. Crows hitch rides on eagles
Wildlife photographer Phoo Chan caught the shot of a lifetime: a crow riding atop a bald eagle. Although the scene only lasted for a few seconds, it speaks volumes about crows’ fearsomeness, even when faced with a much larger predator.
It might not be the smartest move, but it sure is freaking amazing.
One charity said: ‘Babies are being born pre-polluted.’
Photograph: Zffoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was “a matter of great concern”.
The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown. But the scientists said they could carry chemicals that could cause long-term damage or upset the foetus’s developing immune system. The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers.
The particles were found in the placentas from four healthy women who had normal pregnancies and births. Microplastics were detected on both the foetal and maternal sides of the placenta and in the membrane within which the foetus develops.
A dozen plastic particles were found. Only about 4% of each placenta was analysed, however, suggesting the total number of microplastics was much higher. All the particles analysed were plastics that had been dyed blue, red, orange or pink and may have originally come from packaging, paints or cosmetics and personal care products.
The microplastics were mostly 10 microns in size (0.01mm), meaning they are small enough to be carried in the bloodstream. The particles may have entered the babies’ bodies, but the researchers were unable to assess this.
“It is like having a cyborg baby: no longer composed only of human cells, but a mixture of biological and inorganic entities,” said Antonio Ragusa, director of obstetrics and gynaecology at the San Giovanni Calibita Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome, and who led the study. “The mothers were shocked.”
In the study, published in the journal Environment International, the researchers concluded: “Due to the crucial role of placenta in supporting the foetus’s development and in acting as an interface with the external environment, the presence of potentially harmful plastic particles is a matter of great concern. Further studies need to be performed to assess if the presence of microplastics may trigger immune responses or may lead to the release of toxic contaminants, resulting in harm.”
The potential effects of microplastics on foetuses include reduced foetal growth, they said. The particles were not found in placentas from two other women in the study, which may be the result of different physiology, diet or lifestyle, the scientists said.
Microplastics pollution has reached every part of the planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water, and to breathe them in.
Their effect in the body is unknown but scientists say there is an urgent need to assess the issue, particularly for infants. In October, scientists revealed that babies fed formula milk in plastic bottles are swallowing millions of particles a day. In 2019, researchers reported the discovery of air pollution particles on the foetal side of placentas, indicating that unborn babies are also exposed to the dirty air produced by motor traffic and fossil fuel burning.
The Italian researchers used a plastic-free protocol to deliver the babies in order to prevent any contamination of the placentas. Obstetricians and midwives used cotton gloves to assist the women in labour and only cotton towels were used in the delivery room.
Andrew Shennan, professor of obstetrics at King’s College London, told the Daily Mail it was reassuring that the babies in the study had normal births but “it is obviously preferable not to have foreign bodies while the baby is developing”.
Elizabeth Salter Green, at the chemicals charity Chem Trust, said: “Babies are being born pre-polluted. The study was very small but nevertheless flags a very worrying concern.”
A separate recent study showed that nanoparticles of plastic inhaled by pregnant laboratory rats were detected in the liver, lungs, heart, kidney, and brain of their foetuses.
IMAGE: ARTISTIC DIAGRAM OF THE SUBSEA AND COASTAL PERMAFROST ECOSYSTEMS, EMPHASIZING GREENHOUSE GAS PRODUCTION AND RELEASE. CREDIT: VICTOR OLEG LESHYK AT NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
New research suggests slow but substantial greenhouse gas release from submarine permafrost
In the far north, the swelling Arctic Ocean inundated vast swaths of coastal tundra and steppe ecosystems. Though the ocean water was only a few degrees above freezing, it started to thaw the permafrost beneath it, exposing billions of tons of organic matter to microbial breakdown. The decomposing organic matter began producing CO2 and CH4, two of the most important greenhouse gases.
Though researchers have been studying degrading subsea permafrost for decades, difficulty collecting measurements and sharing data across international and disciplinary divides have prevented an overall estimate of the amount of carbon and the rate of release. A new study, led by Ph.D. candidate Sara Sayedi and senior researcher Dr. Ben Abbott at Brigham Young University (BYU) published in IOP Publishing journal Environmental Research Letters, sheds light on the subsea permafrost climate feedback, generating the first estimates of circumarctic carbon stocks, greenhouse gas release, and possible future response of the subsea permafrost zone.
Sayedi and an international team of 25 permafrost researchers worked under the coordination of the Permafrost Carbon Network (PCN), which is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The researchers combined findings from published and unpublished studies to estimate the size of the past and present subsea carbon stock and how much greenhouse gas it might produce over the next three centuries.Using a methodology called expert assessment, which combines multiple, independent plausible values, the researchers estimated that the subsea permafrost region currently traps 60 billion tons of methane and contains 560 billion tons of organic carbon in sediment and soil. For reference, humans have released a total of about 500 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. This makes the subsea permafrost carbon stock a potential giant ecosystem feedback to climate change.”Subsea permafrost is really unique because it is still responding to a dramatic climate transition from more than ten thousand years ago,” Sayedi said. “In some ways, it can give us a peek into the possible response of permafrost that is thawing today because of human activity.”
Estimates from Sayedi’s team suggest that subsea permafrost is already releasing substantial amounts of greenhouse gas. However, this release is mainly due to ancient climate change rather than current human activity. They estimate that subsea permafrost releases approximately 140 million tons of CO2 and 5.3 million tons of CH4 to the atmosphere each year. This is similar in magnitude to the overall greenhouse gas footprint of Spain.
The researchers found that if human-caused climate change continues, the release of CH4 and CO2 from subsea permafrost could increase substantially. However, this response is expected to occur over the next three centuries rather than abruptly. Researchers estimated that the amount of future greenhouse gas release from subsea permafrost depends directly on future human emissions. They found that under a business-as-usual scenario, warming subsea permafrost releases four times more additional CO2 and CH4 compared to when human emissions are reduced to keep warming less than 2°C.
“These results are important because they indicate a substantial but slow climate feedback,” Sayedi explained. “Some coverage of this region has suggested that human emissions could trigger catastrophic release of methane hydrates, but our study suggests a gradual increase over many decades.”
Even if this climate feedback is relatively gradual, the researchers point out that subsea permafrost is not included in any current climate agreements or greenhouse gas targets. Sayedi emphasized that there is still a large amount of uncertainty about subsea permafrost and that additional research is needed.
“Compared to how important subsea permafrost could be for future climate, we know shockingly little about this ecosystem,” Sayedi said. “We need more sediment and soil samples, as well as a better monitoring network to detect when greenhouse gas release responds to current warming and just how quickly this giant pool of carbon will wake from its frozen slumber.”
This research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and by BYU Graduate Studies.
Summary of the key scientific points:
Subsea permafrost has been thawing since the end of the last glacial period (~14,000 years ago) when it began to be inundated by the oceanµ
An international team of 25 permafrost researchers estimate that the subsea permafrost region currently traps 60 billion tons of methane and 560 billion tons of organic carbon in sediment and soil. However, the exact amount of these carbon stocks remains highly uncertain.
This carbon is already being released from the subsea permafrost region, though it remains unclear whether this is a natural response to deglaciation or if anthropogenic warming is accelerating greenhouse gas production and release.
The researchers estimate that currently, the subsea permafrost region releases approximately 140 million tons of CO2 and 5.3 million tons of CH4 to the atmosphere each year. This represents a small fraction of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions–approximately equal to the greenhouse gas footprint of Spain.
Experts predict a gradual increase in emissions from subsea permafrost over the next three hundred years rather than an abrupt release.
The amount of greenhouse gas increase depends on how much human emissions are reduced. Experts estimate that approximately ¾ of the extra subsea emissions can be avoided if humans actively reduce their emissions compared to a no mitigation scenario.
This climate feedback is still virtually absent from climate policy discussions, and more field observations are needed to better predict the future of this system.
Quotes from other co-authors:
“I think there are three important messages from this study. First, subsea permafrost is probably not a climate time bomb on a hair trigger. Second, subsea permafrost is a potentially large climate feedback that needs to be considered in climate negotiations. Third, there is still a huge amount that we don’t know about this system. We really need additional research, including international collaboration across northern countries and research disciplines.”
Dr. Ben Abbott, senior researcher on the project, Brigham Young University
“This work demonstrates the power of science synthesis and networking by bringing together experts across a range of disciplines in order to assess our state of knowledge based on observations and models currently available. While scientific work will continue to be done to test these ideas, bringing knowledge together with this expert assessment provides an important baseline for shaping future research on subsea permafrost greenhouse gas emissions.”
Dr. Ted Schuur, Lead investigator of the Permafrost Carbon Network, Northern Arizona University
“This expert assessment is a crucial contribution to the scientific literature in advancing our knowledge on subsea permafrost and potential greenhouse gas emissions from this so far understudied pool. Bringing together scientists from multiple disciplines, institutions, and countries has made it possible to move beyond individual datapoints or studies providing a much more comprehensive estimate of subsea permafrost. ”
Dr. Christina Schädel, Co-Investigator of the Permafrost Carbon Network, Northern Arizona University
“I hope this study begins to unite the research community in submarine permafrost. Historically, it’s not only been a challenging location to do field work and make observations, but language barriers and other obstacles in accessibility to the existing observations and literature has challenged international scientific progress in this area.
“I’m optimistic that this study will shed light on the fact that submarine permafrost exists, and that people are studying its role in climate,” she said. “The size of the research community doesn’t necessarily reflect its importance in the climate system. The amount of carbon sequestered or associated with submarine permafrost is relevant when you compare it to the numbers of carbon in terrestrial permafrost and what’s in the atmosphere today. This is an example of a very large source of carbon that hasn’t been considered in climate predictions or agreements. And while it’s not a ticking time bomb, what is certain is that the choices we make today that influence anthropogenic climate change will determine the response of submarine permafrost carbon stocks far into the future.”
Dr. Jennifer Frederick, Sandia National laboratories
High resolution versions of the photos and illustrations are available at this link.
'VERGETEN' ONDERZEES PERMAFROST LIJKT EEN ENORME IMPACT OP ONS KLIMAAT TE GAAN HEBBEN
'VERGETEN' ONDERZEES PERMAFROST LIJKT EEN ENORME IMPACT OP ONS KLIMAAT TE GAAN HEBBEN
Vivian Lammerse
Het permafrost – dat momenteel nog aan het bijkomen is van het einde van de IJstijd – blijkt veel CO2 en methaan te herbergen.
Tegen het einde van de laatste ijstijd – zo’n 14.000 jaar geleden – overspoelde in het hoge noorden de aanzwellende Noordelijke IJszee grote delen van de kusttoendra. Hoewel het oceaanwater slechts een paar graden boven het vriespunt lag, begon het onderliggende permafrost te dooien. En die dooi is nog steeds gaande. Hierdoor worden er elk jaar miljarden tonnen CO2 en methaan de lucht in gepompt. En ondanks dat dit onderzeese permafrost een enorme impact op ons klimaat lijkt te hebben, is het niet opgenomen in klimaatakkoorden of klimaatdoelen.
Dooi Permafrost is een normaliter permanent bevroren laag aarde. Maar toen het onderzeese permafrost duizenden jaren geleden begon te dooien, werd het organische materiaal blootgesteld aan microbiële afbraak. De ontbindende organische stof begon CO2 en methaan te produceren; twee belangrijke broeikasgassen. Het wegsmelten van het onderzeese permafrost is dus een verontrustend proces. Want al die opgeslagen broeikasgassen worden naar de atmosfeer getransporteerd en leveren zo een belangrijke bijdrage aan de opwarming van de aarde. “Onderzees permafrost is echt uniek, omdat het nog steeds reageert op de klimaattransitie van meer dan tienduizend jaar geleden,” zegt onderzoeker Sara Sayedi. “In sommige opzichten kan het ons een kijkje geven in de mogelijke reactie van permafrost dat vandaag door menselijk toedoen ontdooit.”
Illustratie van het onderzeese permafrost en de manier waarop opgeslagen broeikasgassen vrijkomen.
Afbeelding: Original artwork created for this study by Victor Oleg Leshyk at Northern Arizona University
Hoewel onderzoekers al decennialang de teloorgang van onderzees permafrost bestuderen, is het nog niet zo gemakkelijk om betrouwbare metingen uit te voeren. Hierdoor weten we eigenlijk nog steeds niet precies hoeveel broeikasgassen er tijdens dit proces de lucht in worden gepompt. Ook weten we niet precies hoe snel dit gebeurt. En dus waagde een onderzoeksgroep in een studie, gepubliceerd in het vakblad Environmental Research Letters, opnieuw een poging. De onderzoekers combineerden de bevindingen van verschillende studies om zo de omvang van de onderzeese koolstofvoorraad uit het verleden en in het heden te schatten. Ook bestudeerden ze hoeveel broeikasgassen er nog in de komende drie eeuwen vrij zouden kunnen komen.
Broeikasgassen De resultaten zijn best zorgelijk. Want de onderzoekers schatten dat het sediment en de bodem in het betreffende onderzeese permafrostgebied momenteel zo’n 60 miljard ton methaan en 560 miljard ton CO2 vasthoudt. Voor je beeldvorming, de mensheid heeft sinds de industriële revolutie in totaal ongeveer 500 miljard ton CO2 in de atmosfeer gepompt. Wanneer alle broeikasgassen die het onderzeese permafrost herbergt een weg naar onze atmosfeer weten te vinden, zou dat dus een enorme impact hebben op ons mondiale klimaat.
Geen houden aan De vraag is in hoeverre we het proces nog kunnen stoppen. Want momenteel komt er al veel broeikasgas vrij. De onderzoekers schatten dat het onderzeese permafrost jaarlijks zo’n 140 miljoen ton CO2 en 5,3 miljoen ton methaan de atmosfeer in pompt. Dat is qua omvang vergelijkbaar met de totale uitstoot van Spanje. Maar dat is nog niet het enige. Want de onderzoekers ontdekten dat wanneer de door de mens veroorzaakte klimaatverandering aanhoudt, de afgifte van CO2 en methaan uit het onderzeese permafrost aanzienlijk zou kunnen toenemen. Die toename zal waarschijnlijk heel geleidelijk, verspreid over de komende driehonderd jaar, plaatsvinden.
Mensen De resultaten wijzen erop dat de hoeveelheid toekomstige uitstoot van broeikasgassen door onderzeese permafrost dus rechtstreeks afhangt van onze menselijke emissies. Als we niets doen om klimaatverandering een halt toe te roepen, zal er zo’n vier keer meer CO2 en methaan de atmosfeer weten te bereiken in vergelijking met wanneer de menselijke uitstoot wordt verminderd en de opwarming van de aarde onder de 2 graden Celsius wordt gehouden. Ondanks dat actie dus vereist is, lijken we het probleem van onderzees permafrost een beetje te zijn ‘vergeten’. Want geen enkel klimaatakkoord of klimaatdoel rept over dit onderzeese permafrost en de mogelijk grote bijdrage van de dooi aan de opwarming van de aarde.
Volgens de onderzoekers is het erg belangrijk dat we meer over dit onderzeese permafrost te weten komen. “Vergeleken met hoe belangrijk het zou kunnen zijn voor ons toekomstige klimaat, weten we eigenlijk schrikbarend weinig over dit ecosysteem,” concludeert Sayedi. “We hebben meer sediment- en bodemmonsters nodig, evenals betere metingen. Op die manier kunnen we begrijpen hoe de uitstoot van broeikasgassen reageert op de huidige opwarming en hoe snel deze gigantische opbergplaats van koolstof uit zijn bevroren slaap ontwaakt.”
BEVERS
Niet alleen onderzees permafrost dooit, ook het Noordpoolgebied wordt geteisterd door smeltend permafrost. En dat ligt niet alleen aan extreem weer. Zo blijkt uit een nieuwe studie dat ook bevers een vinger in de pap hebben. Hoe? Gewapend met hun scherpe tanden bouwen de bevers van struiken en bomen dammen, waardoor er kleine poeltjes ontstaan die uitgroeien tot nieuwe meren die soms wel een paar hectare omvatten. En dat gaat rap. In slechts vijf jaar tijd hebben bevers woonachtig in noordwest-Alaska 56 nieuwe meren gecreëerd. Ook al bestaande meren dijen door toedoen van de bever uit. En dat gaat ten koste van kwetsbaar permafrost. Het water is namelijk warmer dan de omringende grond. En dus kunnen deze meren en vijvers de dooi van permafrost versnellen. Meer weten? Lees hier verder!
The Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet Could Lead to a Sea Level Rise of 7 Inches in 2100
The Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet Could Lead to a Sea Level Rise of 7 Inches in 2100
A new study led by researchers from the ULiège Climatology Laboratory , applying the latest climate models, including the MAR – developed at ULiège – predicts a melting of the Greenland ice cap 60% greater than what was previously planned. Data that will be included in the next IPCC report. This study is published in Nature Communications.
Credit: University of Liege
The Greenland ice cap, the second in size after Antarctica, covers an area of 1.7 million square kilometers. Its total melting could cause a significant increase in the level of the oceans, which could reach 7 meters. If we are not there yet, the previous scenarios predicted by the climate models have however just been revised upwards, forecasting an increase in the level of the oceans that could reach 18 cm in 2100 ( compared to the 10 cm previously announced )just because of the increase in surface melt. As part of the next IPCC report (AR6) which will appear in 2022, ULiège’s climatology laboratory has been asked to apply, as part of the ISMIP6 project, the MAR climate model that it is developing to regionalize the old and new IPCC scenarios. The results obtained showed that for the same change in greenhouse gas concentrations, these new scenarios predict a 60% greater surface melt of the Greenland ice cap than previously estimated for the previous IPCC report (AR5, 2013). .
The ULiège MAR model was the first to demonstrate that the Greenland ice cap would melt more with a warming of the Arctic in summer. “While our MAR model suggested in 2100 a contribution of the surface melting of the Greenland ice cap to an increase in the oceans of around ten centimeters in the worst-case scenario (that is to say if nothing is changed) our habits), explains Stefan Hofer, researcher at the ULiège Climate Laboratory currently in post-doctorate at the University of Oslo, our new projections now suggest an increase of 18 cm “. As the new IPCC scenarios are based on models whose physics have been improved – in particular by integrating a better representation of clouds – and whose spatial resolution has been increased, these new projections should in theory be more robust and reliable.
The team from the Climatology laboratory ( SPHERES research unit / Faculty of Sciences ) at ULiège was the first to regionalize these scenarios on the Greenland ice cap. “It would now be interesting ,” continues Xavier Fettweis , FNRS qualified researcher and director of the Laboratory, ” to analyze how these future projections are sensitive to the MAR model that we are developing by regionalizing these scenarios with models other than the MAR as we do. have done on the present climate (GrSMBMIP) ” . This study will be carried out as part of the European PROTECT project(H2020) in which ULiège participates. The objective of this project is to assess and project changes in the Earth’s cryosphere, with fully quantified uncertainties, in order to produce robust global, regional and local projections of sea level rise over a series of time scales.
The data collected as part of the Katabata project - a project to measure the potential of katabatic winds from the south of Groenlad – launched last September by Xavier Fettweis and Damien Ernst ( Montefiore / Faculty of Applied Sciences ), will also help refine the models and in particular the modeling of winds in the MAR climate model. “Knowing that the wind influences the melting of the cap, it is important to have the most reliable models possible,” concludes Xavier Fettweis.
Evolution of the surface mass balance (snowfall – melting) with the old scenarios (cmip5) and the new ones (cmip6). The blue color indicates a mass loss in mm / year (eg 800 mm / year ~ the amount of rain in Brussels).
Credit: University of Liege
Contacts and sources:
University of Liege
Publication:
GrSMBMIP: intercomparison of the modelled 1980-2012 surface mass balance over the Greenland Ice Sheet.Fettweis et al. The Cryosphere, 2020 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20011-8
Greater Greenland Ice Sheet contribution to global sea level rise in CMIP6.Hofer, S., Lang, C., Amory, C. et al. Nat Commun, 2020 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20011-8
The threshold for dangerous global warming will likely be crossed between 2027 and 2042—a much narrower window than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimate of between now and 2052. In a study published in Climate Dynamics, researchers from McGill University introduce a new and more precise way to project the Earth's temperature. Based on historical data, it considerably reduces uncertainties compared to previous approaches.
Scientists have been making projections of future global warming using climate models for decades. These models play an important role in understanding the Earth's climate and how it will likely change. But how accurate are they?
Dealing with uncertainty
Climate models are mathematical simulations of different factors that interact to affect Earth's climate, such as the atmosphere, ocean, ice, land surface and the sun. While they are based on the best understanding of the Earth's systems available, when it comes to forecasting the future, uncertainties remain.
"Climate skeptics have argued that global warming projections are unreliable because they depend on faulty supercomputer models. While these criticisms are unwarranted, they underscore the need for independent and different approaches to predicting future warming," says co-author Bruno Tremblay, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University.
Until now, wide ranges in overall temperature projections have made it difficult to pinpoint outcomes in different mitigation scenarios. For instance, if atmospheric CO2 concentrations are doubled, the General Circulation Models (GCMs) used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), predict a very likely global average temperature increase between 1.9 and 4.5C—a vast range covering moderate climate changes on the lower end, and catastrophic ones on the other.
A new approach
"Our new approach to projecting the Earth's temperature is based on historical climate data, rather than the theoretical relationships that are imperfectly captured by the GCMs. Our approach allows climate sensitivity and its uncertainty to be estimated from direct observations with few assumptions," says co-author Raphael Hebert, a former graduate researcher at McGill University, now working at the Alfred-Wegener-Institut in Potsdam, Germany.
In a study for Climate Dynamics, the researchers introduced the new Scaling Climate Response Function (SCRF) model to project the Earth's temperature to 2100. Grounded on historical data, it reduces prediction uncertainties by about half, compared to the approach currently used by the IPCC. In analyzing the results, the researchers found that the threshold for dangerous warming (+1.5C) will likely be crossed between 2027 and 2042. This is a much narrower window than GCMs estimates of between now and 2052. On average, the researchers also found that expected warming was a little lower, by about 10 to 15 percent. They also found, however, that the "very likely warming ranges" of the SCRF were within those of the GCMs, giving the latter support.
"Now that governments have finally decided to act on climate change, we must avoid situations where leaders can claim that even the weakest policies can avert dangerous consequences," says co-author Shaun Lovejoy, a professor in the Physics Department at McGill University. "With our new climate model and its next generation improvements, there's less wiggle room."
Raphaël Hébert et al, An observation-based scaling model for climate sensitivity estimates and global projections to 2100, Climate Dynamics (2020). DOI: 10.1007/s00382-020-05521-x
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
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Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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