{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

24-01-2020 om 17:14 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Plants Revive After Being Trapped in Ice for 400 Years

LaFarge was able to identify these moss samples as bryophytes, which are extremely resilient plants that have been on Earth for millenia. They are vital contributors to the health and vitality of polar ecosystems, playing a role in their creation and maintenance. They’d been hardy enough to survive in the harsh Arctic climate in the first place, and now that warming trends had exposed them to the open air they had sprung to life once again. They had likely been exposed to the open air for about two years by the time they’d been discovered by the Canadian scientists.

The scientists took samples of the bryophytes back to their laboratory for further study and experimentation. Radiocarbon dating methods confirmed that the moss was approximately 400 years old, yet its ability to produce new life had not been extinguished by the trauma it had experienced.

To test its potency, LaFarge and her team sliced the moss into sections and placing them in controlled environments where light, temperatures and nutrition were ideal for growing. Eventually, seven out of 24 samples sprouted new plants, which to all appearances were perfectly healthy and vibrant.

As LaFarge explained, new moss doesn’t grow from seeds or spores, but from individual plant cells that can create copies of themselves directly. This unique quality may contribute to moss’s ability to regenerate quickly and robustly, even after being placed in suspended frozen animation underneath a glacier for more than four centuries.

More Moss Miracles

This important discovery forced biologists to revise their ideas about the ability of life to survive frozen conditions. But as remarkable as this finding was, scientists affiliated with the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University did their Canadian counterparts one better .

In 2014, just one year after the Ellesmere Island discovery, the British scientists retrieved moss samples from deep inside a frozen moss bank found on the Antarctic tundra. Using radiocarbon dating, they discovered the moss was approximately 1,500 years old. But despite its tremendous antiquity, when the plants were sliced into sections and placed inside an incubator, after a few weeks they, too, began to regenerate.

Even after suffering through the deepest of deep freezes in the coldest continent on our planet, these moss samples had not lost their capacity to regenerate when given enough light, water and nutrition.

“This experiment shows that multi-cellular organisms, plants in this case, can survive over far longer timescales than previously thought,” said Professor Peter Convey, one of the lead scientists involved in this study. “These mosses, a key part of the ecosystem, could survive century to millennial periods of ice advance.”

“If they can survive in this way,” he continued,” then recolonisation following an Ice Age, once ice retreats, would be a lot easier than migrating trans-oceanic distances from warmer regions. It also maintains diversity in an area that would otherwise be wiped clean of life by the ice advance.”

And while the idea may seem farfetched, Convey mentions another possibility that has probably occurred to everyone who has heard this story.

“Although it would be a big jump from the current finding, this does raise the possibility of complex lifeforms surviving even longer periods once encased in permafrost or ice.”

Convey doesn’t specify what he means by “complex lifeforms.” But it boggles the mind to think about what might be buried under the glaciers that cover the polar realms. One thing we know for sure is that thanks to global warming, much of the land that is currently ice covered above the Arctic Circle and near the South Pole may eventually be exposed.

Could Rampaging Viruses —or Vegetable Men —Be Next?

There are many science fiction movies that feature the reanimation of living creatures frozen solid in ice. In 1951’s “The Thing from Another World,” a man-eating, six-foot tall vegetable from another planet, originally encased in a block of ice, terrorizes the occupants of an Arctic research station after accidentally being thawed out by an electric blanket. In 1967’s “The Frozen Dead,” a mad scientist thaws and resuscitates Nazi soldiers he’s kept stored on his English country estate, unaware that they’ve been converted into bloodthirsty zombies.

Far-out storylines like this might appear to have no connection to defrosted and revived moss. But just because moss is benign, that doesn’t mean there aren’t dangers inherent in thawing out lifeforms that lived in others epoch. Some of these lifeforms could very well represent a threat to the health and safety of humanity, and scientists should think carefully about the possible ramifications before opening Pandora’s box and reviving everything they can find.

In the real world, the concern is not so much about frozen animals, Neanderthals, or aliens from crashed spaceships. The real fear is that scientists might mistakenly activate long-dormant viruses or bacteria that we would have no capacity to resist. As human activity continues to heat the planet, the thawing of the tundra in Siberia and the retreat of the glaciers inside the Arctic Circle and in Antarctica could release and reactivate hidden and potentially lethal microorganisms. If such a scenario were to be realized, we could be exposed to hazards that might be even more deadly than Nazi zombies or alien vegetable-men.

The possibility of such an event is not strictly theoretical. In 2014, a group of French scientists revived an ancient virus found frozen in a soil sample taken from 30 metres below the icy tundra of eastern Siberia. Dubbed Pithovirus Sibericum , this gigantic virus was far larger and more complex than the viruses we see today, and is believed to evolved entirely separately from modern infectious agents. 

Fortunately, this virus was found to be harmless to humans. But the next one or the next one after that could be lethal, and if humans are unwittingly exposed to it because of thawing tundra there is no telling how much damage it might do.

• Top image: Regenerating moss. Credit: mllevphoto / Adobe Stock

By Nathan Falde

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

24-01-2020 om 16:43 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Mystery Viruses Discovered Sealed Within Tibetan Glacier For 15,000 Years

{ https://in.mashable.com/}

24-01-2020 om 16:31 geschreven door peter  

Even though he passed away in 1566, Nostradamus correctly predicted many events that happened after his death, such as the rise of Hitler and Napoleon, in addition to the 9/11 attacks on America. And based on recent events, it seems as though another one of the French prophet’s predictions has come true.

In one of his passages, he wrote, “The great plague of the maritime city will not cease until there be avenged the death of the just blood, condemned for a price without crime, of the great lady outraged by pretense.” It seems as though he was predicting the SARS-like outbreak that’s happening right now in the world. An outbreak of a new coronavirus started in China and has spread to different countries around the world: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

Nostradamus

As for the “maritime city” that was mentioned in the passage, a conspiracy theorist has an idea of what location Nostradamus was referring to. “The start of SARS and preponderance of cases are in China, many of which are in Hong Kong. Therefore it is reasonable to view Hong Kong as ‘the maritime city’.”

And the “great lady” could possibly be Wu Yi who was previously the Chinese Health Minister and who helped to control the SARS virus.

So far, the deadly Chinese coronavirus – which has flu-like symptoms that include coughing, fever, shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing – has affected approximately 500 people with 17 deaths. What’s even more frightening is that scientists have warned the public that as many as 10,000 people could have caught the SARS-like virus while visiting Wuhan, China.

There has so far been one diagnosed case in the United States (Washington State) as a man in his 30s caught the virus while visiting Wuhan.

So where did this virus come from? According to a new study (which can be read in full here), it is believed that the virus originated in snakes and spread to humans. There are two types of snakes that are commonly found around the area in which the outbreak originated: Bungarus multicinctus (or the many-banded krait) and Naja atra (or the Chinese cobra).

Nostradamus predicted many disturbing things in history, and this new SARS-like virus is one of the scariest predictions he has made, as more and more people are being affected by this deadly strain.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

23-01-2020 om 11:42 geschreven door peter  

That's because worms like the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can actually tell us a lot about the workings of the human body. Compared to mammals, these simple little fellas live for only two or three weeks, which makes them perfect for studying various genes and metabolic pathways also shared by humans.

In the past, for instance, scientists have shown that altering the insulin signalling pathway (IIS) in worms yields a 100 percent increase in their lifespan; meanwhile, changes in the so-called TOR pathway (target of rapamycin) result in a 30 percent increase.

This latest study has managed to genetically alter both pathways in just the right way to cause a result four or five times greater than the sum of their separate effects.

"The synergistic extension is really wild," says molecular biologist Jarod Rollins from the the MDI Biological Laboratory in Maine.

"The effect isn't one plus one equals two, it's one plus one equals five."

These findings show that ageing is not simply the result of one individual gene or pathway acting on its own, but rather a confluence of networks all working together in the long-term.

This could certainly explain why no one gene or cellular pathway has been found that can provide longer life for either worms, humans or any other animal for that matter.

When tweaks were made to both the IIS and the TOR pathways, the authors found their downstream activity worked synergistically, inducing a mitochondrial stress response that promoted longevity.

Whether or not something like this mechanism proves directly useful in humans remains to be seen, but knowledge of this relationship has certainly opened up new avenues for research.

Unfortunately, because of the long lives of humans, scientists find it quite hard to study our own ageing (it's also not ideal to play around with our genes just to see what happens), so we have to rely on animal proxies like mice, flies and worms instead. In fact, last year researchers were able to extend the lifespan of a mouse and decrease its chances of cancer by extending its telomeres.

But even with all the scientific limitations on human ageing research, we've had some progress. This year a human clinical trial is going to test the drug metformin, a widely-used treatment for type 2 diabetes that has the potential to delay the onset of age-related diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

Perhaps this new research on C. elegans will open similar doors for clinical trials in the future.

"Despite the discovery in C. elegans of cellular pathways that govern ageing, it hasn't been clear how these pathways interact," says nephrologist Hermann Haller, president of the MDI Biological Laboratory.

"By helping to characterise these interactions, our scientists are paving the way for much-needed therapies to increase healthy lifespan for a rapidly ageing population."

• The study was published in Cell Reports.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

23-01-2020 om 00:09 geschreven door peter  

CHILLING 1200-YEAR-OLD VIKING STONE WARNS OF FUTURE LITTLE ICE AGES

According to new archaeological research, roughly 300 years before Rökstenen was erected, the world was struck by a climate catastrophe which saw global average temperatures plunge significantly. Scandinavia was one of the regions worst impacted by this shift, with crop failure, starvation, and mass death ripping through Northern Europe–more than 50% of the population was lost, along with many species.

Furthermore, a string of violent volcanic eruptions darkened the skies with ash at this time, adding to the cooling, and further amplifying the crop failure, famine, and wars.

“Before the Rök stone was erected, several ominous events occurred,” explained Bo Gräslund, a professor of archeology at Uppsala University. “A strong solar storm painted the sky in dramatic red colors, the harvests were hit by an extremely cold summer, and later a solar eclipse occurred just after the sunrise. It could have been enough of one of these events to trigger concerns about a new Fimbulwinter.”

Why the runes were so deeply encrypted is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps whoever had the Rökstenen engraved didn’t want just anyone to read it.

It was a message of terror, after all.

It was a reminder of a cataclysmic past.

It was a warning of the terrible power of the Sun.

Per Holmberg and his team claim to have uncovered an ominous prophecy. The stone speaks of a “battle enduring for centuries,” but not a fight with man, but one with nature. For a full read of the researchers’ recently published study, click here.

We at Electroverse are also forewarning of the terrible power of the Sun, and that these prophesied cold times are returning in earnest, in line with the historically low solar activity currently being experienced.

Even NASA agrees, in part at least, with their recent forecast revealing this next solar cycle (25) will be “the weakest of the past 200 years,” with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.

With SC25 likely a just stop-off on the Sun’s descent into its next full-blown Grand Solar Minimum:

Social Media channels are restricting Electroverse’s reach — be sure to subscribe to receive new post notifications by email (the box is located in the sidebar >>> or scroll down if on mobile).

And/or become a Patron by clicking here: patreon.com/join/electroverse

The site receives ZERO funding, and never has.

So any way you can, help us spread the message so others can survive and thrive in the coming times.

Grand Solar Minimum + Pole Shift

NASA Predicts Next Solar Cycle will be Lowest in 200 Years (Dalton Minimum Levels) + the Implications

Electroverse

{ https://electroverse.net/ }

21-01-2020 om 21:45 geschreven door peter  

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES

They named their discovery Lokiarchaeota, after the Loki's Castle hydrothermal vent near Greenland where it was found; but doubt shadowed the finding. Could the sample have been contaminated by something else in the core?

Now, thanks to the work of Japanese scientists, those doubts can be put to rest. For the first time, they have isolated Lokiarchaeota, and grown it in a lab.

That means, for the first time, researchers can closely study and interact with living Lokiarchaeota, which could help us to find our very first ancestors on this incredible blue planet. Their research has been published on preprint server bioRxiv, and awaits peer review.

The tree of life, at its base, is divided into three domains. One of those is occupied by bacteria - single-celled microbes that don't have a nucleus or membrane-bound organelles, and get around by waving hair-like structures called flagella. Another is eukaryotes, organisms whose cells have nuclei and membranes. That domain includes us humans, animals, plants, and algae.

And then there are archaea. These are a lot like bacteria, in that they lack nuclei and membrane-bound organelles, and get around using flagella. But there are a few key differences. They divide differently. Their cell walls are made of slightly different stuff. And their RNA is different enough to separate them on the phylogenetic tree.

But then along came Lokiarchaeota - followed by other archaea specimens that had eukaryotic characteristics. These were named Thorarchaeota, Odinarchaeota and Heimdallarchaeota (to follow the same naming convention).

Collectively, they are called the Asgard archaea, and some scientists think they could be the origin of eukaryotic life - perhaps after an Asgard-like archaeon swallowed up a bacterium.

But it's hard to tell without studying the organisms in isolated detail. This is where the Japanese scientists come in. They retrieved a sediment core from the seabed in the Nankai Trough, 2,533 metres (8,310 feet) below sea level, in 2006.

This was before anyone knew about Asgard archaea. Only later, an RNA analysis of their rich sample revealed the presence of a Lokiarchaeota-like organism.

When the team started their work, they didn't know this yet. They carefully cultivated their samples for five years, in a methane-fed continuous-flow bioreactor system designed to mimic the conditions of a deep-sea methane vent. Very slowly, the microbes multiplied.

The next step was to place samples from the bioreactor in glass tubes with nutrients to keep them fed and growing. There they sat for another year, finally starting to develop a very faint population of Lokiarchaeota.

Then, the team invested even more time into isolating, cultivating and growing this slow-dividing population. Common bacteiral populations usually take about half an hour to double. Lokiarchaeota took 20 days.

"Repeated subcultures gradually enriched the archaeon with extremely slow growth rate and low cell yield," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"The culture consistently had 30-60 days of lag phase and required over 3 months to reach full growth [..] Variation of cultivation temperatures, and substrate combinations and concentrations did not significantly improve the lag phase, growth rate or cell yield."

In all, the experiment took 12 years. The researchers named their cultivated microbe Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum - after Prometheus, the ancient Greek mythological Titan who was credited with creating humans out of clay.

They made several curious findings. The first is that Prometheoarchaeum would only grow in the presence of one or two other microbes, the archaeon Methanogenium and the bacterium Halodesulfovibrio. When Prometheoarchaeum breaks down amino acids into food, it produces hydrogen, which the other microbes eat.

If the hydrogen was allowed to hang around, the experiments revealed, this could further hinder Prometheoarchaeum's already slow growth, indicating the archaea has a symbiotic relationship with other microbes, in this case syntrophic - meaning the growth of one species or both depends on what the other eats.

Then, when the organism was examined under an electron microscope, it revealed an unusual shape for an archaeon - long tentacles sprouting from its body, within which its partner microbes nestled. When oxygen started increasing on Earth, the researchers hypothesised, this organism could have switched to a relationship with bacteria that used oxygen, increasing its chances of survival, and setting out on the path to eukaryotic life.

And indeed, DNA sequencing revealed the eukaryotic characteristics seen in other Asgard archaea.

Obviously more work needs to be done. Prometheoarchaeum might be quite different from the archaea of billions of years ago. And it's far from definitive proof that eukaryotes evolved from archaea.

The study is so far available ahead of peer-review, so it will be interesting to see what the scientific community makes of it, in time. But no matter what happens now, we're going to learn a heck of a lot from this work.

"This is a monumental paper that reflects a tremendous amount of work and perseverance," evolutionary microbiologist Thijs Ettema of Wageningen University, who wasn't associated with the paper, told Nature.

"It's a major step forward in understanding this important lineage."

The research is available on bioRxiv.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

'Monumental': Scientists successfully grow mysterious ancient organism that could be origin of life as we know it

The previously unknown organism was unearthed on the floor of the Arctic ocean in 2010. It was dubbed Lokiarchaeota in honor of the Loki’s Castle hydrothermal vent where it was found.

What made the finding significant was that the peculiar organism was a type of microbe, called an Archaea, but it appeared to have characteristics of a completely separate type of early life form, a eukaryote. Significantly, all animals, including humans, that have ever walked on Earth are eukaryotes.

ALSO ON RT.COM

Heavy metal diet: Meteorite-consuming microbes could offer clues on how life formed on Earth

However, doubt hung over the stunning discovery, with some claiming that it was the result of contamination. That doubt has finally been laid to rest after a team of Japanese scientists, who were already studying deep sea microbes, managed to isolate Lokiarchaeota and regrow it in a laboratory.

To achieve this the researchers collected deep sea sediment core from the Nankai Trough, 2,533 metres (8,310 feet) below sea level, off the coast of Japan in 2006. They then carefully cultivated the samples for five years in a methane-fed system, to mimic the conditions of a deep-sea methane vent. 

The team then placed the samples in glass tubes, fed them with nutrients and watched to see what would develop. After a year the first faint signs of Lokiarchaeota started to develop. 

ALSO ON RT.COM

Before Greta, there were Vikings: Swedish runes warned of impending climate crisis, researchers claim

After several more years the patient scientists had developed a healthy population of the strange organism. They named their cultivated microbe Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum - after Prometheus, who created humans out of clay in Greek mythology.

Further testing revealed that the organism only grew in conjunction with one or two other microbes and it had long tentacles sprouting from its body, under which the partner microbes nestled.

In their paper, published in Nature this week, the scientists hypothesized that the adaptable organism could have switched its partners to bacteria that used oxygen as that vital element started increasing on Earth. This crucial move would have increased its chances for survival and could have set the course for life as we know it.

“This is a monumental paper that reflects a tremendous amount of work and perseverance,” evolutionary microbiologist Thijs Ettema, who wasn't involved with the research, told Nature. “It's a major step forward in understanding this important lineage.”

ALSO ON RT.COM NASA discovers alien SUGAR on board two fallen meteorites indicating possible origin of LIFE on Earth

{ https://www.rt.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

Even ‘the most indestructible animals in the world’ cannot survive global warming, as experts find the Achilles' heel of Tardigrades is long-term exposure to high temperatures

•  Tardigrades can survive some of Earth's harshest environments
• A new study found their weakness is long-term exposure to high temperatures 
• Tests showed they have a 50% chance  of surviving temperatures above 98.78F 
• Experts now question how these creatures will survive global warming 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Researchers have uncovered the Achilles’ heel Earth’s most indestructible animal – global warming.

Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, being frozen or exposure to radiation, but are unable to endure long-term exposure to high temperatures.

A study showed that specimens that were not acclimate to heat had a 50 percent mortality rate of surviving temperatures above 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period.

The specimens were collected in Denmark, which officials warn will suffer from warmer summers and longer heatwaves as a result of climate change, leaving experts to question the fate of these creatures in a warmer world.

Scroll down for video 

Researchers have uncovered the Achilles’ heel Earth’s most indestructible animal – global warming. Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, being frozen or exposure to radiation, but are unable to endure long-term exposure to high temperatures.

‘Global warming is already having harmful effects on habitats worldwide and it is therefore important to gain an understanding of how rising temperatures may affect extant animals,’ the researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark wrote in the study published in Scientific Report.

‘Here, we investigate the tolerance to high temperatures of Ramazzottius varieornatus, a tardigrade frequently found in transient freshwater habitats.’

‘Using logistic modelling on activity we evaluate the effect of 24 hour temperature exposures on active tardigrades, with or without a short acclimation period, compared to exposures of desiccated tardigrades.’

The team collected a sediment sample from a roof gutter in Denmark that contained adult tardigrades.

Postdoc Ricardo Neves, who i involved in the research, said: ‘The specimens used in this study were obtained from roof gutters of a house located in Nivå, Denmark.’

‘We evaluated the effect of exposures to high temperature in active and desiccated tardigrades, and we also investigated the effect of a brief acclimation period on active animals’

They found that about 50 percent of tardigrades in the active state died when the temperature was put up to 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit.

A study showed that specimens that were not acclimate to heat had a 50 percent mortality rate of surviving temperatures above 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period

If they were given time to acclimatize, they made it to 99.68 degrees.

However, the team observed specimens while in a cryptobiosis state, when they adapt to environmental stress, they could survive temperatures of up to 108.86 degrees for one hour.

And if exposed for 24 hours, the maximum temperature was 145.58 degrees Fahrenheit. 

According to Climate Change Adaptation, a website run by Denmark's Ministry of the Environment and Food of Denmark and the Environmental Protection Agency, climate change will result in the country having warmer summers, longer heatwaves and more periods of drought. 

‘The fact that the median lethal temperature for active R. varieornatus is so close to the median maximum temperature in Denmark—where the specimens used in this study have been sampled—is quite worrying in our opinion,’ Neves told Newsweek.

‘Before our study tardigrades were regarded as the only organism on Earth to survive a cataclysmic event, but now we know this is not true.’

‘[While tardigrades are] among the most resilient organisms inhabiting our planet, it is now clear that they are vulnerable to high temperatures. Therefore, it seems that even tardigrades will have a hard time handling rising temperatures due to global warming.’

WHAT ARE TARDIGRADES?

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.

These small, segmented creatures come in many forms - there are more than 900 species of them - and they're found everywhere in the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.

They have eight legs (four pairs) and each leg has four to eight claws that resemble the claws of a bear.

Boil the 1mm creatures, freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they're so resilient they'll still be alive 200 years later.

An illustration of a tardigrade (water bear) is pictured 

Water bears can live through temperatures as low as -457 degrees, heat as high as 357 degrees, and 5,700 grays of radiation, when 10-20 grays would kill humans and most other animals.

Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years and outlived the dinosaurs.

The animals can also live for a decade without water and even survive in space.

Read more:

• Tardigrades, the Toughest Creatures on Earth, Have an Achilles' Heel—Global Warming

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

16-01-2020 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

• Media via Ricardo Neves, Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

16-01-2020 om 22:41 geschreven door peter  

Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means.

BY MAYA WEI-HAAS

“Things are acting very strangely at high latitude."

“The Siberian patch looks like it's winning the battle,” he says. “It's sort of pulling the magnetic field all the way across to its side of the geographic pole.”

THE ARCTIC: AN OCEAN ON TOP OF THE WORLD

Ice, wildlife, and adventure—that is what draws us to the icy waters sweeping down from the Arctic Ocean. Join the crew of the National Geographic Fleet to explore the northernmost part of the Earth.

{ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ }

16-01-2020 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

Pole Shift Major Earth Changes, Influx of Magnetic Waves, North Pole Shifting Fast, EMF Damage & Protection

Major Earth Changes, Influx of Magnetic Waves, North Pole Shifting Fast, EMF Damage & Protection

Unknown Burst of Gravitational Waves Just Lit Up Earths Detectors Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detectors recorded an unknown or unanticipated “burst” of gravitational waves on Jan. 14. Gravitational waves we’ve detected so far usually relate to extreme cosmic events, like two black holes colliding or neutron stars finally merging after being caught in a death spiral.

Burst gravitational waves have not been detected before and scientists hypothesize they may be linked to phenomena such as supernova or gamma ray bursts, producing a tiny “pop” when detected by the observatories.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

16-01-2020 om 20:01 geschreven door peter  

Everyone knows that Superman is indestructible … except when exposed to green kryptonite from his home planet of Krypton. Everyone knows that tardigrades – those eight-legged micro-animals found living in the most hostile locations, including outer space – are indestructible too. Well, now these little super-beings have their own kryptonite … and, like Superman’s, this deadly and destructive force comes from their own home planet. What … or who … wants to kill these cute little water bears?

“A research group from Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen has just shown that tardigrades are very vulnerable to long-term high temperature exposures.”

Wait a minute, you tardigrade experts shout. Tardigrades have been found living in hot springs and near hot vents on the ocean floor. That’s true, and Ricardo Neves and Nadja Møbjerg, researchers at the University of Copenhagen and authors of a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, point out that desiccated tardigrades (which have their water removed but can still be revived) can survive temperatures up to 151°C (300°F) for up to half an hour. Not surprisingly, active tardigrades require lower temperatures, but how low?

“Rather surprisingly the researchers estimated that for non-acclimated active tardigrades the median lethal temperature is 37.1°C (98.78 F), though a short acclimation periods leads to a small but significant increase of the median lethal temperature to 37.6°C (99.68 F).”

That’s not much higher that the human normal temperature of 98.6 F. According to the university press release on the study, it’s also not much higher than the currently measured maximum temperature in Denmark of 36.4°C (97.52 F). Why are tardigrade researchers in Copenhagen so interested in the maximum temperature of Denmark? You can see where this is heading.

“Global warming, a major aspect of climate change, is already causing a wide range of negative impacts on many habitats of our planet. It is thus of the utmost importance to understand how rising temperatures may affect animal health and welfare.”

What better animal to subject to rising temperatures than the most indestructible creature on the planet, the tardigrade? The research was done on tardigrades found in roof gutters in Nivå, Denmark – in other words, living right alongside humans, not in some hot spring. NASA reports that the average surface temperature for the year 2017 was 58.62 F (14.9 C) and, unless you live in a nice, cool cave where you don’t get any news reports, it’s been rising steadily for years.

Wait a minute, you desperately shout one more time. Didn’t the study find that tardigrades can acclimate themselves to tolerating higher temperatures for longer periods? That’s true, says Neves, but “exposure-time is clearly a limiting factor that constrains their tolerance to high temperatures.” That’s why the study concludes that climate change, and global warming in particular, is the tardigrade’s kryptonite.

It bother me too.

“Indeed, although tardigrades are able to tolerate a diverse set of severe environmental conditions, their endurance to high temperatures is noticeably limited and this might actually be the Achilles heel of these otherwise super-resistant animals.”

Are we doomed? If the tardigrades are, you already know the answer. If only they could fly like Superman and reverse the spin of the Earth to take us back to a time when climate change was not a problem … or at least to a time where we could make better decisions on how humans affect their planet.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

16-01-2020 om 01:13 geschreven door peter  

New Studies: Antarctica Stable, Temps Falling, Ice Mass Growing!

By Kalte Sonne (German text translated/edited by P. Gosselin)

The ice in Antarctica, how is it doing? Is it melting, is it growing? In the following, we present the latest literature on the subject. There is a lot to report.

Let’s start with the temperature development because along with snowfall, this is the most important control factor for Antarctic inland ice.

At NoTricksZone, Kirye shows ten coastal stations of Antarctica. None have been warming over the past 10 years. An example follows:

And here’s the temperature development of the entire Antarctic according to UAH and RSS satellite measurements (from Climate4You, via NoTricksZone):

According to Clem et al. 2018, East Antarctica has cooled over the last 60 years, while West Antarctica has warmed.

The authors establish a connection with the SAM ocean cycle, the Southern Annular Mode. Euan Mearns also deals with the temperature development of Antarctica during the last decades.

Increased ice

Based on height and gravity field measurements by satellite and GPS measurements on the ground, Martin-Español et al. 2017 determined an increase in ice mass in the East Antarctic and a reduction in ice mass in the (much smaller) West Antarctic for the interval 2003-2013.

NASA researcher Jay Zwally also interprets an increase in the East Antarctic ice mass. However, a paper announced in mid-2018 still seems to be stuck in review…

Will the ice of East Antarctica be dragged along by the melting West Antarctic at some point in the melting vortex? No, this will not happen, Indiana University said in a press release of 2017:

New study validates East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if western ice sheet melts

A new study from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis validates that the central core of the East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if the West Antarctic ice sheet melts. The study’s findings are significant, given that some predict the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt quickly due to global warming.

If the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is 10 times larger than the western ice sheet, melted completely, it would cause sea levels worldwide to rise almost 200 feet, according to Kathy Licht, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the School of Science at IUPUI. Licht led a research team into the Transarctic Mountains in search of physical evidence that would verify whether a long-standing idea was still true: The East Antarctic ice sheet is stable.

The East Antarctic ice sheet has long been considered relatively stable because most of the ice sheet was thought to rest on bedrock above sea level, making it less susceptible to changes in climate. However, recent studies show widespread water beneath it and higher melt potential from impinging ocean water. The West Antarctic ice sheet is a marine-based ice sheet that is mostly grounded below sea level, which makes it much more susceptible to changes in sea level and variations in ocean temperature. „Some people have recently found that the East Antarctic ice sheet isn’t as stable as once thought, particularly near some parts of the coast,“ Licht said.

Recent studies have determined that the perimeter of the East Antarctic ice sheet is potentially more sensitive and that the ice may have retreated and advanced much more dynamically than was thought, Licht said. „We believed this was a good time to look to the interior of the ice sheet. We didn’t really know what had happened there,“ Licht said. The research team found the evidence confirming the stability of the East Antarctic ice sheet at an altitude of 6,200 feet, about 400 miles from the South Pole at the edge of what’s called the polar plateau, a flat, high surface of the ice sheet covering much of East Antarctica.

To understand how an ice sheet changes through time, a continuous historical record of those changes is needed, according to Licht. The team found layers of sediment and rocks that built up over time, recording the flow of the ice sheet and reflecting climate change. Finding that record was a challenge because glaciers moving on land tend to wipe out and cover up previous movements of the glacier, Licht said.

The big question the team wanted to answer was how sensitive the East Antarctic sheet might be to climate change. „There are models that predict that the interior of the East Antarctic ice sheet wouldn’t change very much, even if the West Antarctic ice sheet was taken away,“ Licht said. According to these models, even if the ice sheet’s perimeter retreats, its core remains stable. „It turns out that our data supports those models,“ she said. „It’s nice to have that validation.“

The team’s research findings are presented in a paper, “Middle to Late Pleistocene stability of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet at the head of Law Glacier,” that was published today online in the journal Geology.  The research presented is in collaboration with Mike Kaplan, Gisela Winckler, Joerg Schaefer and Roseanne Schwartz at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.”

A Nature Editorial also dealt with the current growth of the East Antarctic ice in January 2018. Of course, the ice in this region has also been worse at times, so it continues to heat up.

However, one would have to go back to the warm Pliocene (5.3-2.6 million years before today):

A history of instability

The East Antarctic ice sheet may be gaining mass in the current, warming climate. The palaeoclimate record shows, however, that it has retreated during previous episodes of prolonged warmth.

The phrase “at a glacial pace” once invoked a sense of slow and unchangeable movement, an almost imperceptible motion. But decades of remote sensing and seafloor observations have shown that glaciers and ice sheets can respond to disturbances much more dynamically than once thought. But as satellites captured the surges and retreat of Greenland’s maritime glaciers in the past decades the Antarctic ice sheets — east and west of the Trans-Antarctic mountains — were at least assumed to be stable. But this, too, turned out to be wrong. First came sediment¹ and model² evidence that the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed during previous interglacial periods and under Pliocene warmth. Then came erosional data showing that several regions of the East Antarctic ice sheet also retreated and advanced throughout the Pliocene³. An extended record⁴ of ice-sheet extent from elsewhere on the East Antarctic coast now paints a more complicated picture of the sensitivity of this ice sheet to warming.”

Curiously enough, half a year later, the tide turned when a paper by Shakun et al. 2018, also in Nature, saw no major problems for the Antarctic ice in the Pliocene:

Minimal East Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat onto land during the past eight million years

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is the largest potential contributor to sea-level rise. However, efforts to predict the future evolution of the EAIS are hindered by uncertainty in how it responded to past warm periods, for example, during the Pliocene epoch (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago), when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were last higher than 400 parts per million.

Geological evidence indicates that some marine-based portions of the EAIS and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated during parts of the Pliocene^1,2, but it remains unclear whether ice grounded above sea level also experienced retreat. This uncertainty persists because global sea-level estimates for the Pliocene have large uncertainties and cannot be used to rule out substantial terrestrial ice loss³, and also because direct geological evidence bearing on past ice retreat on land is lacking.

Here we show that land-based sectors of the EAIS that drain into the Ross Sea have been stable throughout the past eight million years. We base this conclusion on the extremely low concentrations of cosmogenic Be and Al isotopes found in quartz sand extracted from a land-proximal marine sediment core.

This sediment had been eroded from the continent, and its low levels of cosmogenic nuclides indicate that it experienced only minimal exposure to cosmic radiation, suggesting that the sediment source regions were covered in ice. These findings indicate that atmospheric warming during the past eight million years was insufficient to cause widespread or long-lasting meltback of the EAIS margin onto land. We suggest that variations in Antarctic ice volume in response to the range of global temperatures experienced over this period—up to 2–3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures⁴, corresponding to future scenarios involving carbon dioxide concentrations of between 400 and 500 parts per million—were instead driven mostly by the retreat of marine ice margins, in agreement with the latest models^5,6.”

Also, read more at cato.org.

Antarctica stable

Eight million years ago, the earth’s atmosphere had similar CO2 content as today. Investigations now show that the Antarctic ice sheet had hardly retreated at that time.

The ice is apparently more stable than expected. Click here for the press release from the National Science Foundation. You can also read an article in Popular Mechanics.

University of Edinburgh press release from 2017::

Central parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet have been stable for millions of years, from a time when conditions were considerably warmer than now, research suggests.

The study of mountains in West Antarctica will help scientists improve their predictions of how the region might respond to continuing climate change. Its findings could also show how ice loss might contribute to sea level rise.

Although the discovery demonstrates the long-term stability of some parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet, scientists remain concerned that ice at its coastline is vulnerable to rising temperatures. Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Northumbria studied rocks on slopes of the Ellsworth Mountains, whose peaks protrude through the ice sheet. By mapping and analysing surface rocks — including measuring their exposure to cosmic rays — researchers calculated that the mountains have been shaped by an ice sheet over a million-year period, beginning in a climate some 20C warmer than at present.

The last time such climates existed in the mountains of Antarctica was 14 million years ago when vegetation grew in the mountains and beetles thrived. Antarctica’s climate at the time would be similar to that of modern day Patagonia or Greenland. This time marked the start of a period of cooling and the growth of a large ice sheet that extended offshore around the Antarctic continent. Glaciers have subsequently cut deep into the landscape, leaving a high-tide mark — known as a trimline — in the exposed peaks of the Ellsworth range.

The extended ice sheet cooled the oceans and atmosphere, helping form the world of today, researchers say. Their study is among the first to find evidence for this period in West Antarctica. The research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was done in collaboration with the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre. It was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and supported by British Antarctic Survey.

Professor David Sugden, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, said: „These findings help us understand how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has evolved, and to fine-tune our models and predict its future. The preservation of old rock surfaces is testimony to the stability of at least the central parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet — but we are still very concerned over other parts of Antarctica amid climate change.“

As the ice in West Antarctica melts, it rises isostatically, which in turn stabilizes the overlying ice, found a research team from Denmark and Colorado.

Again and again, there are the climate stories about the Totten Glacier in the East-Arctic Wilkesland. Gwyther et al. 2018 were able to show that the basal melting of the glacier is subject to strong natural fluctuations (press release of the NSIDC here). There is no long-term melting trend.

Melting from volcanoes

Glaciers in the western Ross Sea are also stable (Fountain et al. 2017, press release here). The rapidly melting Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has a hot secret that has now been revealed: Beneath the glacier lies a previously unknown volcanic heat source. University of Rhode Island press release from June 2018 (via EurekAlert!):

Researchers discover volcanic heat source under glacier plays critical role in movement, melting

A researcher from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography and five other scientists have discovered an active volcanic heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica. The discovery and other findings, which are critical to understanding the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, of which the Pine Island Glacier is a part, are published in the paper, „Evidence of an active volcanic heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier,“ in the latest edition of Nature Communications.

Assistant Professor Brice Loose of Newport, a chemical oceanographer at GSO and the lead author, said the paper is based on research conducted during a major expedition in 2014 to Antarctica led by scientists from the United Kingdom. They worked aboard an icebreaker, the RRS James Clark Ross, from January to March, Antarctica’s summer. „We were looking to better understand the role of the ocean in melting the ice shelf,“ Loose said. „I was sampling the water for five different noble gases, including helium and xenon. I use these noble gases to trace ice melt as well as heat transport. Helium-3, the gas that indicates volcanism, is one of the suite of gases that we obtain from this tracing method. „We weren’t looking for volcanism, we were using these gases to trace other actions,“ he said. „When we first started seeing high concentrations of helium-3, we thought we had a cluster of bad or suspicious data.“

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet lies atop a major volcanic rift system, but there had been no evidence of current magmatic activity, the URI scientist said. The last such activity was 2,200 years ago, Loose said. And while volcanic heat can be traced to dormant volcanoes, what the scientists found at Pine Island was new. In the paper, Loose said that the volcanic rift system makes it difficult to measure heat flow to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. „You can’t directly measure normal indicators of volcanism — heat and smoke — because the volcanic rift is below many kilometers of ice,“ Loose said

But as the team conducted its research, it found high quantities of an isotope of helium, which comes almost exclusively from mantle, Loose said. „When you find helium-3, it’s like a fingerprint for volcanism. We found that it is relatively abundant in the seawater at the Pine Island shelf. „The volcanic heat sources were found beneath the fastest moving and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier,“ Loose said. „It is losing mass the fastest.“ He said the amount of ice sliding into the ocean is measured in gigatons. A gigaton equals 1 billion metric tons.

However, Loose cautions, this does not imply that volcanism is the major source of mass loss from Pine Island. On the contrary, „there are several decades of research documenting the heat from ocean currents is destabilizing Pine Island Glacier, which in turn appears to be related to a change in the climatological winds around Antarctica,“ Loose said. Instead, this evidence of volcanism is a new factor to consider when monitoring the stability of the ice sheet.

The scientists report in the paper that „helium isotope and noble gas measurements provide geochemical evidence of sub-glacial meltwater production that is subsequently transported to the cavity of the Pine Island Ice Shelf.“ They say that heat energy released by the volcanoes and hydrothermal vents suggests that the heat source beneath Pine Island is about 25 times greater than the bulk of heat flux from an individual dormant volcano.

Professor Karen Heywood, from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, the United Kingdom, and chief scientist for the expedition, said: ‘The discovery of volcanoes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet means that there is an additional source of heat to melt the ice, lubricate its passage toward the sea, and add to the melting from warm ocean waters. It will be important to include this in our efforts to estimate whether the Antarctic ice sheet might become unstable and further increase sea level rise.’

Does that mean that global climate change is not a factor in the stability of the Pine Island Glacier? No, said Loose. ‘Climate change is causing the bulk of glacial melt that we observe, and this newly discovered source of heat is having an as-yet undetermined effect, because we do not know how this heat is distributed beneath the ice sheet.’

He said other studies have shown that melting caused by climate change is reducing the size and weight of the glacier, which reduces the pressure on the mantle, allowing greater heat from the volcanic source to escape and then warm the ocean water. ‘Predicting the rate of sea level rise is going to be a key role for science over the next 100 years, and we are doing that. We are monitoring and modeling these glaciers,’ Loose said.

The scientists conclude by writing: ‘The magnitude and the variations in the rate of the volcanic heat supplied to the Pine Island Glacier, either by internal magma migration, or by an increase in volcanism as a consequence of ice sheet thinning, may impact the future dynamics of the Pine Island Glacier, during the contemporary period of climate-driven glacial retreat.’

In addition to Heywood, Loose worked with Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom; Peter Schlosser of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University; William Jenkins of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts; and David Vaughn of the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom.”

The University of California in Santa Cruz 2015:

Study finds surprisingly high geothermal heating beneath West Antarctic Ice Sheet

UC Santa Cruz team reports first direct measurement of heat flow from deep within the Earth to the bottom of the West Antarctic ice sheet

Read more here.

Article at Spiegel.de 2017:

Researchers discover 91 volcanoes under the ice 

Surprise in Antarctica: hidden under kilometres of ice, researchers have found dozens of previously unknown volcanoes. Eruptions threaten a strong melt – sea levels could rise.”

Read more at Spiegel.de (press release from the University of Edinburgh here).

The West Antarctic Kamb Ice Stream has always puzzled the researchers because here the ice thickened, in contrast to the general melting trend in West Antarctica.

What could be the cause? Another volcano, as reported by the University of Washington in 2018: University of Washington 2018:

Volcano under ice sheet suggests thickening of West Antarctic ice is short-term

A region of West Antarctica is behaving differently from most of the continent’s ice: A large patch of ice there is thickening, unlike other parts of West Antarctica that are losing ice. Whether this thickening trend will continue affects the overall amount that melting or collapsing glaciers could raise the level of the world’s oceans.

A study led by the University of Washington has discovered a new clue to this region’s behavior: A volcano under the ice sheet has left an almost 6,000-year record of the glacier’s motion. The track hidden in the middle of the ice sheet suggests that the current thickening is just a short-term feature that may not affect the glacier over the long term. It also suggests that similar clues to the past may be hiding deep inside the ice sheet itself. ‘What’s exciting about this study is that we show how the structure of the ice sheet acts as a powerful record of what has happened in the past,’ said Nicholas Holschuh, a UW postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences. He is first author of the paper published Sept. 4 in The Cryosphere.

The data come from the ice above Mount Resnik, a 1.6-kilometer (mile-high) inactive volcano that currently sits under 300 meters (0.19 miles) of ice. The volcano lies just upstream of the thickening Kamb Ice Stream, part of a dynamic coastal region of ice that drains into Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Studies show Kamb Ice Stream has flowed quickly in the past but stalled more than a century ago, leaving the region’s ice to drain via the four other major ice streams, a switch that glaciologists think happens every few hundred years. Meanwhile the ice inland of Kamb Ice Stream is beginning to bulge, and it is unclear what will happen next. ‘The shutdown of Kamb Ice Stream started long before the satellite era,’ Holschuh said. ‘We need some longer-term indicators for its behavior to understand how important this shutdown is for the future of the region’s ice.’

The paper analyzes two radar surveys of the area’s ice. One was collected in 2002 by co-authors Robert Jacobel and Brian Welch, using the ice-penetrating radar system at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and the other in 2004 by co-author Howard Conway, a UW research professor of Earth and space sciences. Conway noticed the missing layers and asked his colleagues to investigate. “It wasn’t until we had spent probably six months with this data set that we started to piece together the fact that this thing that we could see within the ice sheet was forming in response to the subglacial volcano,” Holschuh said.

The study shows that the mysterious feature originates at the ice covering Mount Resnik. The authors believe that the volcano’s height pushes the relatively thin ice sheet up so much that it changes the local wind fields, and affects depositing of snow. So as the ice sheet passes over the volcano a section missed out on a few annual layers of snow. “These missing layers are common in East Antarctica, where there is less precipitation and strong winds can strip away the surface snow,” Holschuh said. “But this is really one of the first times we’ve seen these missing layers in West Antarctica. It’s also the first time an unconformity has been used to reconstruct ice sheet motion of the past.”

Over time, the glacial record shows that this feature followed a straight path toward the sea. During the 5,700-year record, the five major coastal ice streams are thought to have sped up and slowed down several times, as water on the base lubricates the glacier’s flow and then periodically gets diverted, stalling one of the ice streams. “Despite the fact that there are all these dramatic changes at the coast, the ice flowing in the interior was not really affected,” Holschuh said.

What the feature does show is that a change occurred a few thousand years ago. Previous UW research shows rapid retreat at the edge of the ice sheet until about 3,400 years ago, part of the recovery from the most recent ice age. The volcano track also shows a thinning of the ice at about this time. “It means that the interior of the ice sheet is responding to the large-scale climate forcing from the last glacial maximum to today,” Holschuh said. “So the long-timescale climatic forcing is very consistent between the interior and the coast, but the shorter-timescale processes are really apparent in the coastal record but aren’t visible in the interior.”

Holschuh cautions that this is only a single data point and needs confirmation from other observations. He is part of an international team of Antarctic scientists looking at combining the hundreds of radar scans of Antarctic and Greenland glaciers that were originally done to measure ice thickness. Those data may also contain unique details of the glacier’s internal structure that can be used to recreate the history of the ice sheet’s motion.

“These persistent tracers of historic ice flow are probably all over the place,” Holschuh said. “The more we can tease apart the stories of past motion told by the structure of the ice sheet, the more realistic we can be in our predictions of how it will respond to future climate change.” The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. The other co-author is Knut Christianson, a UW assistant professor of Earth and space sciences.

Blown soot apparently has no influence on the Antarctic glaciers in the McMurdo dry valleys, Khan et al. 2018 (press release).

Medley & Thomas 2019 documented an increase in snowfall in the Antarctic, which benefited the ice sheet (NASA press release here). The authors establish a connection with the SAM ocean cycle, the Southern Annular Mode.

The University of Colorado in Boulder, however, blames the increase in snowfall on the ozone hole (press release, paper by Lenaerts et al. 2018).

Jenkins et al. 2018 pointed to decadal cycles in the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet at the edge of the Amundsen Sea. The relationship between melting and ocean temperature is nonlinear:

West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat in the Amundsen Sea driven by decadal oceanic variability

Mass loss from the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has increased in recent decades, suggestive of sustained ocean forcing or an ongoing, possibly unstable, response to a past climate anomaly. Lengthening satellite records appear to be incompatible with either process, however, revealing both periodic hiatuses in acceleration and intermittent episodes of thinning. Here we use ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved-oxygen and current measurements taken from 2000 to 2016 near the Dotson Ice Shelf to determine temporal changes in net basal melting. A decadal cycle dominates the ocean record, with melt changing by a factor of about four between cool and warm extremes via a nonlinear relationship with ocean temperature. A warm phase that peaked around 2009 coincided with ice-shelf thinning and retreat of the grounding line, which re-advanced during a post-2011 cool phase. These observations demonstrate how discontinuous ice retreat is linked with ocean variability, and that the strength and timing of decadal extremes is more influential than changes in the longer-term mean state. The nonlinear response of melting to temperature change heightens the sensitivity of Amundsen Sea ice shelves to such variability, possibly explaining the vulnerability of the ice sheet in that sector, where subsurface ocean temperatures are relatively high.

And here are even more temporally variable relationships. Wang et al. 2019: reported on temporally variable relationships of the surface ice mass balance in West Antarctica with the SAM cycle and ENSO:

A New 200‐Year Spatial Reconstruction of West Antarctic Surface Mass Balance

High‐spatial resolution surface mass balance (SMB) over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) spanning 1800–2010 is reconstructed by means of ice core records combined with the outputs of the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts “Interim” reanalysis (ERA‐Interim) and the latest polar version of the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO2.3p2). The reconstruction reveals a significant negative trend (−1.9 ± 2.2 Gt/year·per decade) in the SMB over the entire WAIS during the nineteenth century, but a statistically significant positive trend of 5.4 ± 2.9 Gt/year·per decade between 1900 and 2010, in contrast to insignificant WAIS SMB changes during the twentieth century reported earlier. At regional scales, the Antarctic Peninsula and western WAIS show opposite SMB trends, with different signs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The annual resolution reconstruction allows us to examine the relationships between SMB and large‐scale atmospheric oscillations. Although SMB over the Antarctic Peninsula and western WAIS correlates significantly with the Southern Annular Mode due to the influence of the Amundsen Sea Low, and El Niño/Southern Oscillation during 1800–2010, the significant correlations are temporally unstable, associated with the phase of Southern Annular Mode, El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the Pacific decadal oscillation. In addition, the two climate modes seem to contribute little to variability in SMB over the whole WAIS on decadal‐centennial time scales. This new reconstruction also serves to identify unreliable precipitation trends in ERA‐Interim and thus has potential for assessing the skill of other reanalyses or climate models to capture precipitation trends and variability.”

Read more at No Tricks Zone

Source: https://climatechangedispatch.com/studies-antarctica-stable-ice-growing/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

15-01-2020 om 22:26 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.theguardian.com/international }

14-01-2020 om 22:36 geschreven door peter  

Now and again, I will dig into a weird story that most people may be completely unaware of. And, that is very much the case today. It’s time to head back to 1959 and a strange radar-based affair that went down in England. It was revealed by the media on July 27, 1959 that  for almost a year an unusual phenomenon had been perplexing radar specialists at the Marconi Research Center at Great Baddow, near Chelmsford, Essex, England. The mystery all began early one morning in mid-1958. That was when a number of scientists at the center noticed the appearance of a strange point of light on their radar screens. It appeared to spread out into a ring, then faded and finally completely vanished. This was repeated several times, and the effect was very much likened to the spreading ripples of water on a pond. The rings lasted for two and a half to six minutes. An identical event occurred several days later, but on this particular occasion, the phenomenon had moved from its original position to a different location.

The puzzled scientists began to investigate the strange “ring angels,” as they soon dubbed them, and over the following twelve months or thereabouts recorded ‘ring angel” activity at no less than seventy sites throughout the south-east of England. Despite this, there were no corresponding visual sightings – not a single one. The rings began to appear all over the south and east of the country: reports surfaced from Ipswich, Reading, Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells. Nor were the “ring angels” hindered by changing weather patterns, as evidenced by the fact that a number of positive radar tracking were made in areas that, at the time, were engulfed in thick fog.

Was it possible that the culprits were nothing more mysterious than flocks of birds? This particular theory was carefully scrutinized by a Dr. E. Eastwood, who, at the time, was the Director of Research at the center. Eastwood found that several of the rings had been reported in areas which were regular roosting for starlings. This speculation was weakened, however, when it was noticed that some of the speeds of movement displayed by the “ring angels” were greater than those normally expected of birds. Dr. Eastwood elaborated on this particular theory and said the following: “Another problem is that if these are bird roosts, the birds don’t use them every night. Our once a week observations don’t show the same centers each time by any means.”

Another theory put forward was that they originated as a result of changing patterns in the air itself. “This makes it a very attractive theory,” said Dr. Eastwood, “except that no-one has satisfactorily explained why the air should produce a radar echo.” Despite a lack of a conclusive answer, the rings presented no long-term interference to the practical use of the radar sets, nor to the mystified operators. Finally, however, an answer was found. As the British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) reveal: “A copse of trees covered with starlings revealed the cause of the strange rings of Angels: successions of waves of birds, separated by three minute intervals, took off from the roost moving in expanding circles to feeding grounds.”

On this particular subject, Dr. David Clarke says, in an article titled “Radar Angels”: “Throughout its early history, radar was dogged with technical problems that often led to spectacular misinterpretations of ‘angels’ as enemy aircraft and flying saucers. It is a popular misconception that radar – like the camera – cannot lie and that UFOs ‘confirmed’ by radar must by definition be solid, mechanical objects possibly from outer space.” Sometimes a mystery proves to be not so mysterious, after all. But, we are still left with a fascinating tale!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

13-01-2020 om 20:47 geschreven door peter  

Alien Face Seen In Australian Bush Fires Jan 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 2020

Location of sighting: Australia wild fires

 

Now this is something that just blows my mind. A person was taking photos of the horrendous wildfires in Australia and caught a face poking up from the ground. It looks like a devil. But I believe its an alien that is in an underground base about 6km below the surface who is really seen here. His thoughts...and concerns are visible in his face. You see, aliens can use the power of the mind to see whats going on at the surface. His thoughts accidentally caused the smoke to take form of his face while he was in his meditative state. Smoke is the lightest and easiest form of matter for a telepathic to manipulate. The alien didn't mean to create it. Its just that his thoughts are so powerful that the clouds molded around his telepathic projection unintentionally. Absolutely amazing find by Youtuber UFOvni2012. 

Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

13-01-2020 om 19:26 geschreven door peter  

The CIA recently declassified an intelligence report which reveals new information regarding a nearly 50-year-old UFO sighting. The sighting happened during the summer of 1973 at an experimental missile range located in Kazakhstan (Soviet Union’s Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range).

The heavily redacted report contains only one paragraph explaining the mysterious UFO encounter that happened at a spot called “Site 7”. It explains that the witness was watching a Canada vs. USSR sports game on television when the person “stepped outside for some air”. At that point, the witness reported seeing “an unidentified sharp (bright) green circular object or mass in the sky.” Even though the object was hovering in the sky, the witness was unable to give an approximate size.

According to the report, “Within 10 to 15 seconds of observation, the green circle widened and within a brief period of time several green concentric circles formed around the mass. Within minutes the coloring disappeared. There was no sound, such as an explosion, associated with the phenomenon.”

After researcher John Greenewald asked for a Mandatory Declassification Review and received the intelligence report, he made an interesting connection between numerous unexplained sightings during the Cold War and other similar UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) sightings reported by the U.S. Department of Defense. In fact, a military official told The Washington Post that UAPs can sometimes be seen in military airspace multiple times per month.

In a telephone interview, Greenewald told Newsweek, “This is very much similar to the context we see today, with threats on military facilities,” adding, “The U.S. Navy has gone on the record saying whatever this is, it’s a concern. They’re being encroached upon by this unidentified phenomena.”

The report also added that several weapons were being tested at the range, such as experimental missiles and warheads that contained cartridges that were loaded with hundreds of metal balls. “According to hearsay, experiments involving laser weapons were conducted at an unknown location at the range. Supposedly the tests involved powerful antennas,” the report read. The UFO sighting happened at Site 7 which was used as the headquarters for the “warhead checkout unit” with a number of Soviet Air Force personnel stationed there. The full report can be read here.

It’s quite interesting that the UFO encounter took place at an experimental missile range in 1973 because just a short time before that there were over 12,000 UFO sightings reported to Project Blue Book between the years 1947 and 1969 during the Cold War.

T̷h̷e̷ ̷B̷l̷a̷c̷k̷ ̷V̷a̷u̷l̷t̷@blackvaultcom

The CIA just shed light on a #UFO encounter that has remained a mystery for more than 40 years.

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/cia-ufo-document-

declassified-further-solidifies-threat-potential-from-unknown-objects/ 

…#blackvault #FOIA #UAP

CIA UFO Document Declassified Further Solidifies Threat Potential from Unknown Objects - The Black...

By John Greenewald, Jr. – The Black Vault – Originally Published January 6, 2020 The year 2019 was undoubtedly exciting for UFO enthusiasts. It brought news that the U.S. government and military...

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3:14 PM - Jan 6, 2020

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12-01-2020 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

The UFO Answer(s)

http://ufocon.blogspot.com – The UFO Iconoclast(s)

Source: 

• https://ufocon.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-ufo-answers.html

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

11-01-2020 om 18:14 geschreven door peter  

Ear-pleasing new report confirms volcanic source of mysterious global hum

The idea is that “Every time the rock sags into the chamber, it creates a resonance and this produces this strange signal that you see far away.” Is this really ‘The Hum’?

Can you hear it? That elemental thrumming emerging just beneath the engulfing din of everyday city and suburban life? Well, chances are you're not losing your mind or developing some extrahuman ability akin to comic book superheroes. Better odds are that it's Mother Earth's growing pains in the form of loud volcanic stirrings, as revealed in a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

First reported back in the '70s, these unexplained low-frequency rumbles were heard around the world, and though myriad theories were presented, there was no specific cause ever found, other than possible sound sources like area cooling towers, transformer substations, industrial air compressors, and even secret submarine tracking stations (as portrayed in a 1998 The X-Files episode titled Drive).

Credit: Getty Images

Now a German scientific team has apparently solved the mystery of a strange seismic humming experienced around the globe since it was first detected in late 2018.  And despite many believing it was some alien doomsday device warming up to unleash its planet-killing spores, it appears to be caused by a massive underwater volcano forming just off the coast of Madagascar.

Beginning in the spring of 2018, a wave of intense earthquakes was recorded off the coast of the minuscule island of Mayotte, a French territory midway between Madagascar and Mozambique. 

This anomaly led study co-author Simone Cesca, a German seismologist of the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, to conclude with his colleagues that they were caused by an enormous pocket of molten magma slowly draining up to meet the sea floor of the Indian Ocean. According to their latest research paper, it’s the largest magma chamber ever discovered, and measures in at a whopping 16 to 19 miles deep.

Credit: Getty Images

While surrounding rock filtered and sagged down over the draining magma lake, the ocean floor responded by emitting an epic hum starting in June 2018, and first heard five months later. This gradual draining process also gave birth to a ginormous undersea volcano that spanned three miles in diameter and rose to a height of nearly 2,500 feet.

The primal machinations creating the underwater volcano began voicing a faint seismic humming that wasn't heard until Nov. 11, 2018, when sonic waves traversed the Earth from Kenya to Chile and Canada to the Hawaiian Islands, growing louder and lasting up to 30 minutes at a time. This thunderous downsag of the host rock overlying the reservoir is what triggered the worldwide resonance by emitting 407 very-long-period seismic signals.

Credit: Getty Images

“The whole episode is really, really rare,” Cesca told The Washington Post. “Seeing the deep magma chamber, seeing the magma’s propagation to the surface, seeing the volcano being born — I think this is unique, absolutely. Every time the rock sags into the chamber, it creates a resonance and this produces this strange signal that you see far away.”

So next time your ears pick up some odd reverberations you can't quite identify, it just might be the birthings of some baby volcano arriving into the world.

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11-01-2020 om 17:38 geschreven door peter