Countdown to calving at Antarctic ice shelf

Satellite image of Brunt Ice Shelf taken on January 30, 1986. Image via NASA.

Satellite image of Brunt Ice Shelf taken January 23, 2019. Image via NASA.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our once-yearly crowd-funding campaign.

Cracks growing across Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf reveal that the shelf is poised to release an iceberg with an area about twice the size of New York City.

No one is sure how how the remaining ice shelf will respond following the break, posing an uncertain future for scientific infrastructure and a human presence on the shelf that was first established in 1955.

January 23, 2019. Image via NASA Earth Observatory.

The crack along the top of the January 23, 2019, image above — the so-called Halloween crack — first appeared in late October 2016 and continues to grow eastward from an area known as the McDonald Ice Rumples. The rumples happen when ice flows over an underwater formation, where the bedrock rises high enough to reach into the underside of the ice shelf. The rocky formation impedes the flow of ice and causes pressure waves, crevasses, and rifts to form at the surface.

The more immediate concern is the rift visible in the center of the image. Previously stable for about 35 years, this crack recently started accelerating northward as fast as 2.5 miles (4 km) per year.

The detailed view shows this northward expanding rift coming within a few kilometers of the McDonald Ice Rumples and the Halloween crack. When it cuts all the way across, the area of ice lost from the shelf will likely be at least 660 square miles (1,700 square km). Although that’s not an enormous iceberg by Antarctic standards, it might be the largest berg to break from the Brunt Ice Shelf since observations began in 1915.

The McDonald Ice Rumples. Image via Primus Stove.

Scientists are watching to see if the loss will trigger the shelf to further change and possibly become unstable or break up. Joe MacGregor is a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He said in a statement:

The near-term future of Brunt Ice Shelf likely depends on where the existing rifts merge relative to the McDonald Ice Rumples. If they merge upstream (south) of the McDonald Ice Rumples, then it’s possible that the ice shelf will be destabilized.

Location of the Brunt Ice Shelf. Image via NASA Earth Observatory.

The growing cracks have prompted safety concerns for people working on the shelf, particularly researchers at the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Station. This major base for Earth, atmospheric and space science research typically operates year-round, but has been closed down twice in recent years due to unpredictable changes in the ice. The station has also been rebuilt and relocated over the decades. The detailed image shows the station’s location (Halley IV) until it was closed in 1992. In 2016-2017, the Halley VI station was relocated to a safer location (Halley VIa) upstream of the growing crack.

Calving – the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier – is a normal part of the life cycle of ice shelves, but the recent changes are unfamiliar in this area. The edge of the Brunt Ice Shelf has evolved slowly since Ernest Shackleton surveyed the Antarctic coast in 1915, but it has been speeding up in the past several years.

Bottom line: Images of growing cracks in the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica show that the glacier is poised to release a huge iceberg.

Source: Past and future dynamics of the Brunt Ice Shelf from seabed bathymetry and ice shelf geometry

Via NASA Earth Observatory

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2GIkmf9

Satellite image of Brunt Ice Shelf taken on January 30, 1986. Image via NASA.

Satellite image of Brunt Ice Shelf taken January 23, 2019. Image via NASA.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our once-yearly crowd-funding campaign.

Cracks growing across Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf reveal that the shelf is poised to release an iceberg with an area about twice the size of New York City.

No one is sure how how the remaining ice shelf will respond following the break, posing an uncertain future for scientific infrastructure and a human presence on the shelf that was first established in 1955.

January 23, 2019. Image via NASA Earth Observatory.

The crack along the top of the January 23, 2019, image above — the so-called Halloween crack — first appeared in late October 2016 and continues to grow eastward from an area known as the McDonald Ice Rumples. The rumples happen when ice flows over an underwater formation, where the bedrock rises high enough to reach into the underside of the ice shelf. The rocky formation impedes the flow of ice and causes pressure waves, crevasses, and rifts to form at the surface.

The more immediate concern is the rift visible in the center of the image. Previously stable for about 35 years, this crack recently started accelerating northward as fast as 2.5 miles (4 km) per year.

The detailed view shows this northward expanding rift coming within a few kilometers of the McDonald Ice Rumples and the Halloween crack. When it cuts all the way across, the area of ice lost from the shelf will likely be at least 660 square miles (1,700 square km). Although that’s not an enormous iceberg by Antarctic standards, it might be the largest berg to break from the Brunt Ice Shelf since observations began in 1915.

The McDonald Ice Rumples. Image via Primus Stove.

Scientists are watching to see if the loss will trigger the shelf to further change and possibly become unstable or break up. Joe MacGregor is a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He said in a statement:

The near-term future of Brunt Ice Shelf likely depends on where the existing rifts merge relative to the McDonald Ice Rumples. If they merge upstream (south) of the McDonald Ice Rumples, then it’s possible that the ice shelf will be destabilized.

Location of the Brunt Ice Shelf. Image via NASA Earth Observatory.

The growing cracks have prompted safety concerns for people working on the shelf, particularly researchers at the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Station. This major base for Earth, atmospheric and space science research typically operates year-round, but has been closed down twice in recent years due to unpredictable changes in the ice. The station has also been rebuilt and relocated over the decades. The detailed image shows the station’s location (Halley IV) until it was closed in 1992. In 2016-2017, the Halley VI station was relocated to a safer location (Halley VIa) upstream of the growing crack.

Calving – the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier – is a normal part of the life cycle of ice shelves, but the recent changes are unfamiliar in this area. The edge of the Brunt Ice Shelf has evolved slowly since Ernest Shackleton surveyed the Antarctic coast in 1915, but it has been speeding up in the past several years.

Bottom line: Images of growing cracks in the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica show that the glacier is poised to release a huge iceberg.

Source: Past and future dynamics of the Brunt Ice Shelf from seabed bathymetry and ice shelf geometry

Via NASA Earth Observatory

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2GIkmf9

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #8

Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review...

Story of the Week...

World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity

Plants, insects and organisms crucial to food production in steep decline, says UN

Organic carrot harvest in Germany. Organic agriculture makes up just 1% of global farmland. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/EPA

The world’s capacity to produce food is being undermined by humanity’s failure to protect biodiversity, according to the first UN study of the plants, animals and micro-organisms that help to put meals on our plates.

The stark warning was issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation after scientists found evidence the natural support systems that underpin the human diet are deteriorating around the world as farms, cities and factories gobble up land and pump out chemicals.Over the last two decades, approximately 20% of the earth’s vegetated surface has become less productive, said the report, launched on Friday.

It noted a “debilitating” loss of soil biodiversity, forests, grasslands, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and genetic diversity in crop and livestock species. In the oceans, a third of fishing areas are being overharvested.

Many species that are indirectly involved in food production, such as birds that eat crop pests and mangrove trees that help to purify water, are less abundant than in the past, noted the study, which collated global data, academic papers and reports by the governments of 91 countries.

It found 63% of plants, 11% of birds, and 5% of fish and fungi were in decline. Pollinators, which provide essential services to three-quarters of the world’s crops, are under threat. As well as the well-documented decline of bees and other insects, the report noted that 17% of vertebrate pollinators, such as bats and birds, were threatened with extinction.

Once lost, the species that are critical to our food systems cannot be recovered, it said. “This places the future of our food and the environment under severe threat.”

World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity by Jonathan Watts, Guardian, Feb 21, 2019

---

Opinion of the Week...

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists

In an exchange that went viral, the senator from California demonstrated why climate change exemplifies an issue on which older people should listen to the young.

Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux/h5>

One imagines that Senator Dianne Feinstein would like a do-over of her colloquy with some young people on Friday afternoon. A group of school students, at least one as young as seven, went to the senator’s San Francisco office to ask her to support the Green New Deal climate legislation. In a video posted online by the Sunrise Movement, she tells them that the resolution isn’t a good one, because it can’t be paid for, and the Republicans in the Senate won’t support it. She adds that she is at work on her own resolution, which she thinks could pass. Then, when the group persists in supporting the Green New Deal, which was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Feinstein responds, “You know what’s interesting about this group? I’ve been doing this for thirty years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here and you say, ‘It has to be my way or the highway.’ I don’t respond to that. I’ve gotten elected, I just ran, I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality,” she continued. “And I know what I’m doing. So, you know, maybe people should listen a little bit.”  

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists, Opinion by Bill McKibben, New Yorker Magazine, Feb 23, 2019 

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Toon of the Week...

 

---

Coming Soon on SkS...

• Fighting Climate Change: Structural vs individual action (Climate Adam)
• Prices are not enough (Frank Ackerman)
• Analysis: The climate papers most featured in the media in 2018 (Robert McSweeney)
• Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5 (Baerbel)
• New research this week (Ari)
• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9 (John Hartz)
• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #9 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week...

 

---

SkS Week in Review... 

• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8 by John Hartz
• New research, February 11-17, 2019 by Ari Jokimäki
• Global coal use may have peaked in 2014, says latest IEA World Energy Outlook by Simon Evans (Carbon Brief)
• Studies shed new light on Antarctica’s future contribution to sea level rise by Robert McSweeney (Carbon Brief)
• A Swedish Teenager's Compelling Plea on Climate by Greenman 3610 (Yale Climate Connections)
• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #7 by John Hartz

from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2ThrS6g

Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review...

Story of the Week...

World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity

Plants, insects and organisms crucial to food production in steep decline, says UN

Organic carrot harvest in Germany. Organic agriculture makes up just 1% of global farmland. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/EPA

The world’s capacity to produce food is being undermined by humanity’s failure to protect biodiversity, according to the first UN study of the plants, animals and micro-organisms that help to put meals on our plates.

The stark warning was issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation after scientists found evidence the natural support systems that underpin the human diet are deteriorating around the world as farms, cities and factories gobble up land and pump out chemicals.Over the last two decades, approximately 20% of the earth’s vegetated surface has become less productive, said the report, launched on Friday.

It noted a “debilitating” loss of soil biodiversity, forests, grasslands, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and genetic diversity in crop and livestock species. In the oceans, a third of fishing areas are being overharvested.

Many species that are indirectly involved in food production, such as birds that eat crop pests and mangrove trees that help to purify water, are less abundant than in the past, noted the study, which collated global data, academic papers and reports by the governments of 91 countries.

It found 63% of plants, 11% of birds, and 5% of fish and fungi were in decline. Pollinators, which provide essential services to three-quarters of the world’s crops, are under threat. As well as the well-documented decline of bees and other insects, the report noted that 17% of vertebrate pollinators, such as bats and birds, were threatened with extinction.

Once lost, the species that are critical to our food systems cannot be recovered, it said. “This places the future of our food and the environment under severe threat.”

World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity by Jonathan Watts, Guardian, Feb 21, 2019

---

Opinion of the Week...

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists

In an exchange that went viral, the senator from California demonstrated why climate change exemplifies an issue on which older people should listen to the young.

Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux/h5>

One imagines that Senator Dianne Feinstein would like a do-over of her colloquy with some young people on Friday afternoon. A group of school students, at least one as young as seven, went to the senator’s San Francisco office to ask her to support the Green New Deal climate legislation. In a video posted online by the Sunrise Movement, she tells them that the resolution isn’t a good one, because it can’t be paid for, and the Republicans in the Senate won’t support it. She adds that she is at work on her own resolution, which she thinks could pass. Then, when the group persists in supporting the Green New Deal, which was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Feinstein responds, “You know what’s interesting about this group? I’ve been doing this for thirty years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here and you say, ‘It has to be my way or the highway.’ I don’t respond to that. I’ve gotten elected, I just ran, I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality,” she continued. “And I know what I’m doing. So, you know, maybe people should listen a little bit.”  

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists, Opinion by Bill McKibben, New Yorker Magazine, Feb 23, 2019 

---

Toon of the Week...

 

---

Coming Soon on SkS...

• Fighting Climate Change: Structural vs individual action (Climate Adam)
• Prices are not enough (Frank Ackerman)
• Analysis: The climate papers most featured in the media in 2018 (Robert McSweeney)
• Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5 (Baerbel)
• New research this week (Ari)
• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9 (John Hartz)
• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #9 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week...

 

---

SkS Week in Review... 

• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8 by John Hartz
• New research, February 11-17, 2019 by Ari Jokimäki
• Global coal use may have peaked in 2014, says latest IEA World Energy Outlook by Simon Evans (Carbon Brief)
• Studies shed new light on Antarctica’s future contribution to sea level rise by Robert McSweeney (Carbon Brief)
• A Swedish Teenager's Compelling Plea on Climate by Greenman 3610 (Yale Climate Connections)
• 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #7 by John Hartz

from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2ThrS6g

Astronomers find a nearby river of stars

The night sky is centered on the south galactic pole in this image, which is a stereographic projection. In this special projection, the Milky Way curves around the outskirts of the image in an arc. The stars in the newly discovered stellar stream are shown in red. As seen in our sky, they are crossing the southern hemisphere of the galaxy, amidst many well-known constellations. Image via University of Vienna.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our once-yearly crowd-funding campaign.

Researchers using data from the Gaia satellite have found a river of stars – what astronomers call a stellar stream – currently traveling through our solar neighborhood. The stream is relatively nearby – only 326 light-years away – and contains at least 4,000 stars that have likely been moving together in space since they formed about one billion years ago.

There are a number of stellar streams known in our galaxy, but this is a new one to astronomers. It consists of stars that were born together as a star cluster whose member stars are now dispersing into space, pulled apart by the gravitational field of the Milky Way.

University of Vienna astrophysicist Stefan Meingast is lead author of a new paper about the discovery, published February 15, 2019, in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Meingast said in a statement:

Most star clusters in the galactic disk disperse rapidly after their birth as they do not contain enough stars to create a deep gravitational potential well, or in other words, they do not have enough glue to keep them together. Even in the immediate solar neighborhood, there are, however, a few clusters with sufficient stellar mass to remain bound for several hundred million years. So, in principle, similar, large, stream-like remnants of clusters or associations should also be part of the Milky Way disk.

Thanks to the precision of the Gaia measurements, the authors could measure the 3D motion of stars in space. When they were looking at the distribution of nearby stars moving together, one particular group of stars immediately caught the eye of the researchers. It was a group of stars that showed precisely the expected characteristics of a stellar stream.

The newly found stellar stream covers much of the southern sky. Astronomers say it was “hiding in plain sight.” Astronomer João Alves at the University of Vienna is a co-author of the study. Alves said:

Identifying nearby disk streams is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Astronomers have been looking at, and through, this new stream for a long time, as it covers most of the night sky, but only now realize it is there, and it is huge, and shockingly close to the sun. Finding things close to home is very useful, it means they are not too faint nor too blurred for further detailed exploration, as astronomers dream.

The authors also determined the stream’s age to be around one billion years. As such, it has already completed four full orbits around our galaxy. During this time – this billion years, or four cosmic or galactic years for these stars – the young star cluster, born from a single cloud of gas and dust in space, has developed its stream-like structure due to being pulled upon by the Milky Way’s gravity. Eventually, its stars will disperse as single or (much smaller) multiple star systems into space, just as our own sun is thought to have left the star cluster of its birth billions of years ago.

A statement from these astronomers said:

Due to sensitivity limitations of the Gaia observations, [our] selection only contained about 200 sources. An extrapolation beyond these limits suggests the stream should have at least 4,000 stars, thereby making the structure more massive than most known clusters in the immediate solar neighborhood.

Verena Fürnkranz of the University of Vienna Department of Astrophysics is a study co-author. She said:

As soon as we investigated this particular group of stars in more detail, we knew that we had found what we were looking for: A coeval, stream-like structure, stretching for hundreds of parsecs across a third of the entire sky. It was so thrilling to be part of a new discovery.

The researchers say that the newly-discovered nearby system can be used as a valuable gravity probe to measure the mass of the galaxy. With follow-up work, this stream could help astronomers learn how galaxies get their stars, test the gravitational field of the Milky Way, and, because of its proximity, become a wonderful target for planet-finding missions.

Bottom line: A team of astronomers have discovered a nearby stellar stream of at least 4,000 stars that have been moving together in space since they formed about 1 billion years ago.

Source: Extended stellar systems in the solar neighborhood. II. Discovery of a nearby 120° stellar stream in Gaia DR2

Via Astronomy & Astrophysics/University of Vienna

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2E78SOA

The night sky is centered on the south galactic pole in this image, which is a stereographic projection. In this special projection, the Milky Way curves around the outskirts of the image in an arc. The stars in the newly discovered stellar stream are shown in red. As seen in our sky, they are crossing the southern hemisphere of the galaxy, amidst many well-known constellations. Image via University of Vienna.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our once-yearly crowd-funding campaign.

Researchers using data from the Gaia satellite have found a river of stars – what astronomers call a stellar stream – currently traveling through our solar neighborhood. The stream is relatively nearby – only 326 light-years away – and contains at least 4,000 stars that have likely been moving together in space since they formed about one billion years ago.

There are a number of stellar streams known in our galaxy, but this is a new one to astronomers. It consists of stars that were born together as a star cluster whose member stars are now dispersing into space, pulled apart by the gravitational field of the Milky Way.

University of Vienna astrophysicist Stefan Meingast is lead author of a new paper about the discovery, published February 15, 2019, in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Meingast said in a statement:

Most star clusters in the galactic disk disperse rapidly after their birth as they do not contain enough stars to create a deep gravitational potential well, or in other words, they do not have enough glue to keep them together. Even in the immediate solar neighborhood, there are, however, a few clusters with sufficient stellar mass to remain bound for several hundred million years. So, in principle, similar, large, stream-like remnants of clusters or associations should also be part of the Milky Way disk.

Thanks to the precision of the Gaia measurements, the authors could measure the 3D motion of stars in space. When they were looking at the distribution of nearby stars moving together, one particular group of stars immediately caught the eye of the researchers. It was a group of stars that showed precisely the expected characteristics of a stellar stream.

The newly found stellar stream covers much of the southern sky. Astronomers say it was “hiding in plain sight.” Astronomer João Alves at the University of Vienna is a co-author of the study. Alves said:

Identifying nearby disk streams is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Astronomers have been looking at, and through, this new stream for a long time, as it covers most of the night sky, but only now realize it is there, and it is huge, and shockingly close to the sun. Finding things close to home is very useful, it means they are not too faint nor too blurred for further detailed exploration, as astronomers dream.

The authors also determined the stream’s age to be around one billion years. As such, it has already completed four full orbits around our galaxy. During this time – this billion years, or four cosmic or galactic years for these stars – the young star cluster, born from a single cloud of gas and dust in space, has developed its stream-like structure due to being pulled upon by the Milky Way’s gravity. Eventually, its stars will disperse as single or (much smaller) multiple star systems into space, just as our own sun is thought to have left the star cluster of its birth billions of years ago.

A statement from these astronomers said:

Due to sensitivity limitations of the Gaia observations, [our] selection only contained about 200 sources. An extrapolation beyond these limits suggests the stream should have at least 4,000 stars, thereby making the structure more massive than most known clusters in the immediate solar neighborhood.

Verena Fürnkranz of the University of Vienna Department of Astrophysics is a study co-author. She said:

As soon as we investigated this particular group of stars in more detail, we knew that we had found what we were looking for: A coeval, stream-like structure, stretching for hundreds of parsecs across a third of the entire sky. It was so thrilling to be part of a new discovery.

The researchers say that the newly-discovered nearby system can be used as a valuable gravity probe to measure the mass of the galaxy. With follow-up work, this stream could help astronomers learn how galaxies get their stars, test the gravitational field of the Milky Way, and, because of its proximity, become a wonderful target for planet-finding missions.

Bottom line: A team of astronomers have discovered a nearby stellar stream of at least 4,000 stars that have been moving together in space since they formed about 1 billion years ago.

Source: Extended stellar systems in the solar neighborhood. II. Discovery of a nearby 120° stellar stream in Gaia DR2

Via Astronomy & Astrophysics/University of Vienna

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2E78SOA

Look for the Spring Triangle

The Spring Triangle is an asterism with the bright stars Arcturus, Spica and Regulus at its corners. All 3 stars are in different constellations. Image via Scott Levine.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign.

The Spring Triangle is a broad but unassuming triangle of three bright stars in three constellations. It starts to show its face on these cold midwinter nights.

Just as – a few weeks ago – the groundhog brought us into February and gave us hope for warmer weather, so the stars of the Spring Triangle start to make their way into the late evening sky as February progresses. By early March, these stars are all up before midnight. By early April, they’re all up by mid-evening (midway between sundown and midnight). When you see the Spring Triangle stars above the houses across the street, you can almost feel the warm springtime air.

The Spring Triangle, like the sky’s other seasonal shapes (for instance the Summer Triangle and Winter Circle (or Hexagon) isn’t a constellation. It isn’t one of the 88 regions of the sky officially recognized as constellations by the International Astronomical Union. Instead, it’s an asterism, an unofficial but recognizable pattern of stars that can be in one or more than one constellation. Asterisms are what many of us would pick out as constellations, if we didn’t know any. They’re often the sky’s most recognizable patterns.

The Spring Triangle is made up of three of the sky’s brightest stars in three different constellations: Regulus in Leo the Lion, Arcturus in Boötes the Herdsman (the only constellation with an umlaut in its name), and Spica in Virgo the Maiden.

Let’s learn to track these stars down so we can watch them move across the night as we wait for spring to begin.

You’ll know you’ve got the right 3 stars if you see the backwards question mark pattern – another asterism, called The Sickle in Leo – extending from the westernmost bright star, Regulus. Image via Scott Levine.

Once darkness falls in February, turn toward the east to find a bright yellowish star twinkling in the darkness. That’s Regulus, the first to rise of the three Spring Triangle stars. We see Regulus as one star, but it’s actually a four-star system. From about 79 light-years away, the light from the four blends into just one point in the night. The brightest star in this system is a yellow supergiant about three times the size of our sun.

If your skies are clear, you should be able to make out the backwards question mark pattern in Leo. This is another asterism, called The Sickle. It marks the Lion’s front end, while Regulus represents Leo’s heart. For an illustration, see the chart above.

Also, notice that there’s a second Triangle inside the larger Spring Triangle. The smaller Triangle excludes Regulus, but includes yellowish Denebola, a double star about 36 light-years away. Denebola is the second brightest in Leo. It lies in the Lion’s tail. To see this second Triangle, see the chart below.

Some stargazers speak of the Spring Triangle as including Denebola instead of Regulus. Image via Scott Levine.

As the night goes on, Arcturus and Spica rise. In early March, all three stars – Arcturus, Spica and Regulus – will be up before midnight.

For those at northerly latitudes, Arcturus is the second-brightest star visible, after Sirius (those at more southerly latitudes, like the southern U.S., can see the sky’s actual second-brightest star, Canopus). Arcturus is a gorgeous old red giant about 37 light-years away. Billions of years from now, when the sun has burnt up its own hydrogen fuel supply, it will turn into a star similar to the type Arcturus is now.

If Arcturus has risen, chances are Spica has, too. Look for Spica lower in the sky than Arcturus – and father toward the south, or left – of the others. Spica is a blue giant star about 250 light-years away.

The Spring Triangle is less attention-grabbing than the Winter Circle (or Hexagon) and the Summer Triangle. If you’re having trouble finding it, there’s another way.

Find the Spring Triangle using the Big Dipper as a guide. Image via Scott Levine.

Use the Big Dipper (Plough) for extra help

Toward the north, look for the Big Dipper, called the Plough in the U.K. This time of year, by mid-evening, it’s ascending in the northeast. If you draw a line from the star Dubhe to the star Merak, the two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl or blade, and extend it toward the south, you’ll reach Regulus.

Also, if you follow the curve of the Dipper’s handle away from the bowl, you can follow the arc to Arcturus. From there, keep going, and drive a spike to Spica.

Surprisingly enough, the Spring Triangle is bigger than its more famous summertime cousin, and it’s almost as big across as the Winter Hexagon. It’s not one of the best-known star patterns, though.

Once you’ve found the Spring Triangle, you’ll enjoy it year after year. Maybe because it appears as spring is about to arrive, this pattern seems full of optimism for good things to come!

Bottom Line: See if you can find the Spring Triangle on these midwinter nights. It’ll start rising into the east as night falls in February and will stay around for most of the night until the summertime heat comes along.

Read more: Arc to Arcturus, the springtime star

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2TdHPdH

The Spring Triangle is an asterism with the bright stars Arcturus, Spica and Regulus at its corners. All 3 stars are in different constellations. Image via Scott Levine.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign.

The Spring Triangle is a broad but unassuming triangle of three bright stars in three constellations. It starts to show its face on these cold midwinter nights.

Just as – a few weeks ago – the groundhog brought us into February and gave us hope for warmer weather, so the stars of the Spring Triangle start to make their way into the late evening sky as February progresses. By early March, these stars are all up before midnight. By early April, they’re all up by mid-evening (midway between sundown and midnight). When you see the Spring Triangle stars above the houses across the street, you can almost feel the warm springtime air.

The Spring Triangle, like the sky’s other seasonal shapes (for instance the Summer Triangle and Winter Circle (or Hexagon) isn’t a constellation. It isn’t one of the 88 regions of the sky officially recognized as constellations by the International Astronomical Union. Instead, it’s an asterism, an unofficial but recognizable pattern of stars that can be in one or more than one constellation. Asterisms are what many of us would pick out as constellations, if we didn’t know any. They’re often the sky’s most recognizable patterns.

The Spring Triangle is made up of three of the sky’s brightest stars in three different constellations: Regulus in Leo the Lion, Arcturus in Boötes the Herdsman (the only constellation with an umlaut in its name), and Spica in Virgo the Maiden.

Let’s learn to track these stars down so we can watch them move across the night as we wait for spring to begin.

You’ll know you’ve got the right 3 stars if you see the backwards question mark pattern – another asterism, called The Sickle in Leo – extending from the westernmost bright star, Regulus. Image via Scott Levine.

Once darkness falls in February, turn toward the east to find a bright yellowish star twinkling in the darkness. That’s Regulus, the first to rise of the three Spring Triangle stars. We see Regulus as one star, but it’s actually a four-star system. From about 79 light-years away, the light from the four blends into just one point in the night. The brightest star in this system is a yellow supergiant about three times the size of our sun.

If your skies are clear, you should be able to make out the backwards question mark pattern in Leo. This is another asterism, called The Sickle. It marks the Lion’s front end, while Regulus represents Leo’s heart. For an illustration, see the chart above.

Also, notice that there’s a second Triangle inside the larger Spring Triangle. The smaller Triangle excludes Regulus, but includes yellowish Denebola, a double star about 36 light-years away. Denebola is the second brightest in Leo. It lies in the Lion’s tail. To see this second Triangle, see the chart below.

Some stargazers speak of the Spring Triangle as including Denebola instead of Regulus. Image via Scott Levine.

As the night goes on, Arcturus and Spica rise. In early March, all three stars – Arcturus, Spica and Regulus – will be up before midnight.

For those at northerly latitudes, Arcturus is the second-brightest star visible, after Sirius (those at more southerly latitudes, like the southern U.S., can see the sky’s actual second-brightest star, Canopus). Arcturus is a gorgeous old red giant about 37 light-years away. Billions of years from now, when the sun has burnt up its own hydrogen fuel supply, it will turn into a star similar to the type Arcturus is now.

If Arcturus has risen, chances are Spica has, too. Look for Spica lower in the sky than Arcturus – and father toward the south, or left – of the others. Spica is a blue giant star about 250 light-years away.

The Spring Triangle is less attention-grabbing than the Winter Circle (or Hexagon) and the Summer Triangle. If you’re having trouble finding it, there’s another way.

Find the Spring Triangle using the Big Dipper as a guide. Image via Scott Levine.

Use the Big Dipper (Plough) for extra help

Toward the north, look for the Big Dipper, called the Plough in the U.K. This time of year, by mid-evening, it’s ascending in the northeast. If you draw a line from the star Dubhe to the star Merak, the two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl or blade, and extend it toward the south, you’ll reach Regulus.

Also, if you follow the curve of the Dipper’s handle away from the bowl, you can follow the arc to Arcturus. From there, keep going, and drive a spike to Spica.

Surprisingly enough, the Spring Triangle is bigger than its more famous summertime cousin, and it’s almost as big across as the Winter Hexagon. It’s not one of the best-known star patterns, though.

Once you’ve found the Spring Triangle, you’ll enjoy it year after year. Maybe because it appears as spring is about to arrive, this pattern seems full of optimism for good things to come!

Bottom Line: See if you can find the Spring Triangle on these midwinter nights. It’ll start rising into the east as night falls in February and will stay around for most of the night until the summertime heat comes along.

Read more: Arc to Arcturus, the springtime star

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2TdHPdH

Arc to Arcturus, the springtime star

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign.

Tonight, at mid-northern latitudes, look for the brilliant star Arcturus to climb over your eastern horizon around 9 to 10 p.m. local time. That’s the approximate time on your clock, regardless of your longitude. South of the equator, this northerly star rises considerably later in the evening. Click here to know when Arcturus rises into your sky.

Extend the natural arc of the Big Dipper handle to verify that you’ve found Arcturus. The Big Dipper can actually be seen from as far south as the tropical and subtropical regions of the Southern Hemisphere. However, the Big Dipper doesn’t reach its high point for the night in late February until an hour or two after the midnight hour.

Use Big Dipper to find Polaris, the North Star

If you’re in the northern U.S., Canada or at a similar latitude, the Big Dipper is circumpolar for you – always above the horizon. These images show the Dipper’s location at around midnight in these seasons. Just remember “spring up and fall down” for the Dipper’s appearance in our northern sky. It ascends in the northeast on spring evenings, and descends in the northwest on fall evenings. Image via burro.astr.cwru.edu.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Arcturus counts as our faithful springtime star. At present, Arcturus rises about three hours after sunset at mid-northern latitudes. Yet this shining beauty of a star rises about four minutes earlier with each following day whereas the sun sets a bit later daily. All added up, that means Arcturus will be sparkling above the horizon at dusk/nightfall in a month or so to announce the return of spring to the Northern Hemisphere!

Bottom line: Before going to bed tonight, locate the Big Dipper in your northern sky, and then follow the arc in the Dipper’s handle to find yellow-orange star Arcturus.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2tJndvT

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign.

Tonight, at mid-northern latitudes, look for the brilliant star Arcturus to climb over your eastern horizon around 9 to 10 p.m. local time. That’s the approximate time on your clock, regardless of your longitude. South of the equator, this northerly star rises considerably later in the evening. Click here to know when Arcturus rises into your sky.

Extend the natural arc of the Big Dipper handle to verify that you’ve found Arcturus. The Big Dipper can actually be seen from as far south as the tropical and subtropical regions of the Southern Hemisphere. However, the Big Dipper doesn’t reach its high point for the night in late February until an hour or two after the midnight hour.

Use Big Dipper to find Polaris, the North Star

If you’re in the northern U.S., Canada or at a similar latitude, the Big Dipper is circumpolar for you – always above the horizon. These images show the Dipper’s location at around midnight in these seasons. Just remember “spring up and fall down” for the Dipper’s appearance in our northern sky. It ascends in the northeast on spring evenings, and descends in the northwest on fall evenings. Image via burro.astr.cwru.edu.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Arcturus counts as our faithful springtime star. At present, Arcturus rises about three hours after sunset at mid-northern latitudes. Yet this shining beauty of a star rises about four minutes earlier with each following day whereas the sun sets a bit later daily. All added up, that means Arcturus will be sparkling above the horizon at dusk/nightfall in a month or so to announce the return of spring to the Northern Hemisphere!

Bottom line: Before going to bed tonight, locate the Big Dipper in your northern sky, and then follow the arc in the Dipper’s handle to find yellow-orange star Arcturus.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2tJndvT

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 17 through Sat, Feb 23, 2019

Editor's Pick

The 3 Big Things That People Misunderstand About Climate Change

David Wallace-Wells, author of the new book The Uninhabitable Earth,describes why climate change might alter our sense of time.

A child sleeps on a couch in a flooded street in Chongqing, China, on July 20, 2010. REUTERS

The year is 2100. The United States has been devastated by climate change. Super-powerful hurricanes regularly ravage coastal cities. Wildfires have overrun Los Angeles several times over. And it is dangerous to go outside on some summer days—children and the elderly risk being broiled alive.

In such a world as that one, will we give up on the idea of historical progress? Should we even believe in it now? In his new book, The Uninhabitable Earth, the writer David Wallace-Wells considers how global warming will change not only the experience of human life but also our ideas and philosophies about it. It’s possible, he told me recently, that climate change will make us believe that history is “something that takes us backward rather than forward.”

“The 21st century will be dominated by climate change in the same way that … the 19th century in the West was dominated by modernity or industry,” he said. “There won’t be an area of human life that is untouched by it.”

I recently talked to Wallace-Wells about his new book, the difficulty of writing stories about climate change, and which science-fiction prophecy he believes came true. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

The 3 Big Things That People Misunderstand About Climate Change by Robinson Meyer, Science, The Atlantic, Feb 22, 2019

---

Links posted on Facebook

Sun Feb 17, 2019

• Climate Change & Metaphors: A Primer by Michael Barnard, Clean Technica, Feb 16, 2019
• 16-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Cheers 'Beginning of Great Changes' as Climate Strike Goes Global by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams, Feb 15, 2019
• My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back, Opinion by George Monbiot, Comment is Free, Guardian, Feb 15, 2019
• Why the Green New Deal makes me hopeful about climate change by Andrew Dressler, Gray Matters, Houston Chronicle, Feb 15, 2019
• The West’s Great River Hits Its Limits: Will the Colorado Run Dry? by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 1 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Jan 14, 2019
• A California coalition is tackling one of the hardest, unsexiest parts of climate policy by David Roberts, Energy & Environment, Vox, Feb 15, 2019
• Time to Panic, Opinion by David Wallace-Wells, Sunday Review, New York Times, Feb 16, 2019
• No, the Green New Deal won’t threaten the grid by Umair Irrfan, Energy & Environment, Vox, Feb 15, 2019

Mon Feb 18, 2019

• Hindu climate activists take lead on combating climate change by Murali Balaji, Yale News, Feb 15, 2019
• Climate wars: The end of the beginning?, Perspective by David Titley, Capital Weather Gang, Washington Post, Feb 15, 2019
• Analysis: BP’s outlook for fossil fuels could be undermined by slowing energy demand by Simon Evans, Carbon Brief, Feb 15, 2019
• Climate change a threat to world order, Munich Security Conference hears by Ben Knight, Deutsche Welle (WE), Feb 17, 2019
• On the Water-Starved Colorado River, Drought Is the New Normal by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 2 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Jan 22, 2019
• Using Emergency Powers to Fight Climate Change by Dan Farber, Legal Planet, Jan 14, 2019
• Climate Change Isn’t Just Frying the Planet—It’s Fraying Our Nerves by Roiwan Walrath, Environment, Mother Jones, Feb 18, 2019
• Sharp rise in methane levels threatens world climate targets by Robin McKie, Environment, Observer/Guardian, Feb 17, 2019

Tue Feb 19, 2019

• Hurricanes to Slam Mediterranean as Global Warming Ramps Up by Ruth Schuster, Haaretz, Feb 18, 2019
• The school climate change strikes are inspiring – but they should shame us, Opinion by Jonathan Freedland, Comment is Free, Guardian, Feb 17, 2019
• States Are Introducing Bills That Could Prevent Teachers From Advocating For Climate Change by Kelly Czajka, Pacific Standard, Feb 18, 2019
• Global climate targets will be missed as deforestation rises, study says by Rob Picheta, CNN, Feb 18, 2019
• Arctic Bogs Hold Another Global Warming Risk That Could Spiral Out of Control by Phil McKenna, InsideClimate News, Feb 19, 2019
• Scientist who popularized term “global warming” dies at 87, AP News, Feb 18, 2019
• Running Dry: New Strategies for Conserving Water on the Colorado by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 3 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Jan 31, 2019
• Why Do We Fail When We Try to Tell the Story of Climate Change? by David Wallace-Wells, Slate, Feb 19, 2019

Wed Feb 20, 2019

• Adani's 'legal intimidation' tactics against community groups a 'threat to democracy' by Ben Smee, Business, Guardian, Feb 18, 2019
• Climate change threatens 2 of Ecuador's 7 glaciers by Nathalie Jimenez, Panama Today, Feb 18, 2019
• ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ puts words to a future you don’t want to live in by Kate Yoder, Grist, Feb 19, 2019
• White House prepares to scrutinize intelligence agencies’ finding that climate change threatens national security by Juliet Eilperin & Missy Ryan, Health & Science, Washington Post, Feb 20, 2019
• Military and National Security Leaders Strongly Criticize Politicized “Presidential Climate Security Committee” by Caitlin Werrell & Francesco Femia, The Center for Climate & Security, Feb 20, 2019
• Climate change an 'imminent' security threat, risk experts say by Laurie Goering, Thompson Reuters Foundation, Feb 19, 2019
• In Era of Drought, Phoenix Prepares for a Future Without Colorado River Water by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 4 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Feb 7, 2019
• Do You Believe in Climate Change? Really? by Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, Feb 19, 2019

Thu Feb 21, 2019

• 100% Renewable Energy Needs Lots of Storage. This Polar Vortex Test Showed How Much. by Dan Gearino, InsideClimate News, Feb 20, 2019
• Border Wall Could Sap Military Funding for Climate Adaptation by Scott Waldman, E&E News/Scientific American, Feb 20, 2019
• Revealed: How the Tobacco and Fossil Fuel Industries Fund Disinformation Campaigns Around the World by Mat Hope, DeSmog UK, Feb 19, 2019
• Youth Climate Movement Gains Steam, and Signatures, to Support Landmark Case by Dana Drugmand, Climate Liability News, Feb 20, 2019
• Climate Change Is Scary—Not the Green New Deal, Opinion by Bill McKibben, Yes! Magazine, Feb 14, 2019
• Teachers to join climate protests to demand curriculum reform by Jonathan Watts, Environment, Guardian, Feb 21, 2019
• Restoring the Colorado: Bringing New Life to a Stressed River by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 5 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Feb 14, 2019
• It’s Possible to Face Climate Horrors and Still Find Hope by Margaret Klein Salamon, Truthout, Feb 20, 2019

Fri Feb 22, 2019

• The Real Price of a Chocolate Bar: West Africa’s Rainforests by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, Feb 21, 2019
• UK homes ‘shockingly unprepared’ for climate change, says CCC by Jocelyn Timperley, Carbon Brief, Feb 21, 2019
• Land management ‘blind spots’ make 1.5C goal highly unlikely, Guest Post by Callum Brown, Carbon Brief, Feb 18, 2019
• Declaring A National Emergency Won't Solve The Climate Crisis by Kate Wheeling, Pacific Standard, Feb 19, 2019
• Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere may soar to levels not seen in 56 million years by Doyle Rice, USA Today, Feb 21, 2019
• Becoming Greta: ‘Invisible Girl’ to Global Climate Activist, With Bumps Along the Way by Somini Sengupta, Climate, New York Times, Feb 18, 2019
• Pay attention to the growing wave of climate change lawsuits by Umair Irfan, Energy & Environment, Vox, Feb 22, 2019
• World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity by Jonathan Watts, Guardian, Feb 21, 2019

Sat Feb 23, 2019

• Why Aren't We Using Nature To Fight Climate Change? by Sophie Yeo, Pacific Standard, Feb 22, 2019
• Glencore, the world's biggest thermal coal exporter, is capping its output over climate concerns by Tom DiChristopher, CNBC, Feb 20, 2019
• Insurance not enough to offset financial risks of climate change, analysts say by Laurie Goering, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Feb 22, 2019
• The 3 Big Things That People Misunderstand About Climate Change by Robinson Meyer, Science, The Atlantic, Feb 22, 2019
• ‘No Way to Defend Ourselves Against the Onslaught of Climate Change’ by Desmond Brown, Caribbean Climate Wire, Inter Press Service (IPS), Feb 21, 2019
• EU committee shelves climate concerns to open US trade talks by Natalie Sauer, Climate Home News, Feb 20, 2019

from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2E4VqKP

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 17 through Sat, Feb 23, 2019

Editor's Pick

The 3 Big Things That People Misunderstand About Climate Change

David Wallace-Wells, author of the new book The Uninhabitable Earth,describes why climate change might alter our sense of time.

A child sleeps on a couch in a flooded street in Chongqing, China, on July 20, 2010. REUTERS

The year is 2100. The United States has been devastated by climate change. Super-powerful hurricanes regularly ravage coastal cities. Wildfires have overrun Los Angeles several times over. And it is dangerous to go outside on some summer days—children and the elderly risk being broiled alive.

In such a world as that one, will we give up on the idea of historical progress? Should we even believe in it now? In his new book, The Uninhabitable Earth, the writer David Wallace-Wells considers how global warming will change not only the experience of human life but also our ideas and philosophies about it. It’s possible, he told me recently, that climate change will make us believe that history is “something that takes us backward rather than forward.”

“The 21st century will be dominated by climate change in the same way that … the 19th century in the West was dominated by modernity or industry,” he said. “There won’t be an area of human life that is untouched by it.”

I recently talked to Wallace-Wells about his new book, the difficulty of writing stories about climate change, and which science-fiction prophecy he believes came true. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

The 3 Big Things That People Misunderstand About Climate Change by Robinson Meyer, Science, The Atlantic, Feb 22, 2019

---

Links posted on Facebook

Sun Feb 17, 2019

• Climate Change & Metaphors: A Primer by Michael Barnard, Clean Technica, Feb 16, 2019
• 16-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Cheers 'Beginning of Great Changes' as Climate Strike Goes Global by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams, Feb 15, 2019
• My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back, Opinion by George Monbiot, Comment is Free, Guardian, Feb 15, 2019
• Why the Green New Deal makes me hopeful about climate change by Andrew Dressler, Gray Matters, Houston Chronicle, Feb 15, 2019
• The West’s Great River Hits Its Limits: Will the Colorado Run Dry? by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 1 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Jan 14, 2019
• A California coalition is tackling one of the hardest, unsexiest parts of climate policy by David Roberts, Energy & Environment, Vox, Feb 15, 2019
• Time to Panic, Opinion by David Wallace-Wells, Sunday Review, New York Times, Feb 16, 2019
• No, the Green New Deal won’t threaten the grid by Umair Irrfan, Energy & Environment, Vox, Feb 15, 2019

Mon Feb 18, 2019

• Hindu climate activists take lead on combating climate change by Murali Balaji, Yale News, Feb 15, 2019
• Climate wars: The end of the beginning?, Perspective by David Titley, Capital Weather Gang, Washington Post, Feb 15, 2019
• Analysis: BP’s outlook for fossil fuels could be undermined by slowing energy demand by Simon Evans, Carbon Brief, Feb 15, 2019
• Climate change a threat to world order, Munich Security Conference hears by Ben Knight, Deutsche Welle (WE), Feb 17, 2019
• On the Water-Starved Colorado River, Drought Is the New Normal by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 2 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Jan 22, 2019
• Using Emergency Powers to Fight Climate Change by Dan Farber, Legal Planet, Jan 14, 2019
• Climate Change Isn’t Just Frying the Planet—It’s Fraying Our Nerves by Roiwan Walrath, Environment, Mother Jones, Feb 18, 2019
• Sharp rise in methane levels threatens world climate targets by Robin McKie, Environment, Observer/Guardian, Feb 17, 2019

Tue Feb 19, 2019

• Hurricanes to Slam Mediterranean as Global Warming Ramps Up by Ruth Schuster, Haaretz, Feb 18, 2019
• The school climate change strikes are inspiring – but they should shame us, Opinion by Jonathan Freedland, Comment is Free, Guardian, Feb 17, 2019
• States Are Introducing Bills That Could Prevent Teachers From Advocating For Climate Change by Kelly Czajka, Pacific Standard, Feb 18, 2019
• Global climate targets will be missed as deforestation rises, study says by Rob Picheta, CNN, Feb 18, 2019
• Arctic Bogs Hold Another Global Warming Risk That Could Spiral Out of Control by Phil McKenna, InsideClimate News, Feb 19, 2019
• Scientist who popularized term “global warming” dies at 87, AP News, Feb 18, 2019
• Running Dry: New Strategies for Conserving Water on the Colorado by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 3 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Jan 31, 2019
• Why Do We Fail When We Try to Tell the Story of Climate Change? by David Wallace-Wells, Slate, Feb 19, 2019

Wed Feb 20, 2019

• Adani's 'legal intimidation' tactics against community groups a 'threat to democracy' by Ben Smee, Business, Guardian, Feb 18, 2019
• Climate change threatens 2 of Ecuador's 7 glaciers by Nathalie Jimenez, Panama Today, Feb 18, 2019
• ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ puts words to a future you don’t want to live in by Kate Yoder, Grist, Feb 19, 2019
• White House prepares to scrutinize intelligence agencies’ finding that climate change threatens national security by Juliet Eilperin & Missy Ryan, Health & Science, Washington Post, Feb 20, 2019
• Military and National Security Leaders Strongly Criticize Politicized “Presidential Climate Security Committee” by Caitlin Werrell & Francesco Femia, The Center for Climate & Security, Feb 20, 2019
• Climate change an 'imminent' security threat, risk experts say by Laurie Goering, Thompson Reuters Foundation, Feb 19, 2019
• In Era of Drought, Phoenix Prepares for a Future Without Colorado River Water by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 4 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Feb 7, 2019
• Do You Believe in Climate Change? Really? by Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, Feb 19, 2019

Thu Feb 21, 2019

• 100% Renewable Energy Needs Lots of Storage. This Polar Vortex Test Showed How Much. by Dan Gearino, InsideClimate News, Feb 20, 2019
• Border Wall Could Sap Military Funding for Climate Adaptation by Scott Waldman, E&E News/Scientific American, Feb 20, 2019
• Revealed: How the Tobacco and Fossil Fuel Industries Fund Disinformation Campaigns Around the World by Mat Hope, DeSmog UK, Feb 19, 2019
• Youth Climate Movement Gains Steam, and Signatures, to Support Landmark Case by Dana Drugmand, Climate Liability News, Feb 20, 2019
• Climate Change Is Scary—Not the Green New Deal, Opinion by Bill McKibben, Yes! Magazine, Feb 14, 2019
• Teachers to join climate protests to demand curriculum reform by Jonathan Watts, Environment, Guardian, Feb 21, 2019
• Restoring the Colorado: Bringing New Life to a Stressed River by Jim Robbins, Crisis on the Colorado: Part 5 of 5, Yale Environment 360, Feb 14, 2019
• It’s Possible to Face Climate Horrors and Still Find Hope by Margaret Klein Salamon, Truthout, Feb 20, 2019

Fri Feb 22, 2019

• The Real Price of a Chocolate Bar: West Africa’s Rainforests by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, Feb 21, 2019
• UK homes ‘shockingly unprepared’ for climate change, says CCC by Jocelyn Timperley, Carbon Brief, Feb 21, 2019
• Land management ‘blind spots’ make 1.5C goal highly unlikely, Guest Post by Callum Brown, Carbon Brief, Feb 18, 2019
• Declaring A National Emergency Won't Solve The Climate Crisis by Kate Wheeling, Pacific Standard, Feb 19, 2019
• Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere may soar to levels not seen in 56 million years by Doyle Rice, USA Today, Feb 21, 2019
• Becoming Greta: ‘Invisible Girl’ to Global Climate Activist, With Bumps Along the Way by Somini Sengupta, Climate, New York Times, Feb 18, 2019
• Pay attention to the growing wave of climate change lawsuits by Umair Irfan, Energy & Environment, Vox, Feb 22, 2019
• World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity by Jonathan Watts, Guardian, Feb 21, 2019

Sat Feb 23, 2019

• Why Aren't We Using Nature To Fight Climate Change? by Sophie Yeo, Pacific Standard, Feb 22, 2019
• Glencore, the world's biggest thermal coal exporter, is capping its output over climate concerns by Tom DiChristopher, CNBC, Feb 20, 2019
• Insurance not enough to offset financial risks of climate change, analysts say by Laurie Goering, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Feb 22, 2019
• The 3 Big Things That People Misunderstand About Climate Change by Robinson Meyer, Science, The Atlantic, Feb 22, 2019
• ‘No Way to Defend Ourselves Against the Onslaught of Climate Change’ by Desmond Brown, Caribbean Climate Wire, Inter Press Service (IPS), Feb 21, 2019
• EU committee shelves climate concerns to open US trade talks by Natalie Sauer, Climate Home News, Feb 20, 2019

from Skeptical Science https://ift.tt/2E4VqKP

Could cockroaches survive a nuclear apocalypse?

Exposed to radiation, cockroaches still fare worse than the humble fruit fly. Image via University of Melbourne/Shutterstock.

Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our once-yearly crowd-funding campaign.

By Kate Stanton, University of Melbourne

The 2008 film Wall-E depicted Earth as a post-apocalyptic wasteland with nothing on it but the abandoned remnants of human society and a forlorn, trash-compacting robot. The titular robot’s only living company is a surprisingly adorable pet cockroach named Hal, Pixar’s nod to the popular myth that cockroaches will outlive us all.

Wall-E has a look at Hal. Watch a scene from the movie. Image via Disney movies and facts.

Despite Hal’s sympathetic portrayal, many people think cockroaches are pretty gross.

But the creepy crawlies do have a reputation for resilience, likely contributing to the belief that they could even survive a nuclear bomb and subsequent radiation exposure.

Media reports have suggested that the cockroach myth stems from rumors that insects thrived in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But University of Melbourne’s Tilman Ruff, a Nobel laureate who studies the health and environmental consequences of nuclear explosions, says he has yet to see any documented evidence that there were cockroaches scuttling through the rubble. Ruff said:

I’ve certainly seen photographs of injured people in Hiroshima that have lots of flies around, and you do imagine some insects would have survived. But they still would have been affected, even if they appear more resistant than humans.

Mutations have been found in animal populations within the original 1,004-square-mile Chernobyl exclusion area. Image via University of Melbourne/Getty Images.

The U.S. TV series Mythbusters tested the cockroach survival theory in 2012 when they exposed cockroaches to radioactive material. The roaches survived longer than humans would have, but they all died at extreme levels of radiation.

University of Melbourne evolutionary biologist Mark Elgar says the results of the Mythbusters test are incomplete because they only looked at how many days the cockroaches lived after exposure. They didn’t look at the cockroaches’ ability to produce viable eggs, thus ensuring the continued survival of the species. Elgar said:

There is some evidence that they seem quite resilient to gamma rays, although they are not necessarily the most resistant across insects.

You could argue that some ants, particularly those that dig nests deep into the ground, would be more likely to survive an apocalypse than cockroaches.

Previous tests of insects subjected to radiation found that cockroaches, though six to 15 times more resistant than humans, would still fare worse than the humble fruit fly.

Elgar says the feral American and German species of cockroach – the ones you might recognize from your kitchen nooks and crannies – have given the rest of the species a bad rap. He said:

Their habit of basically acting as an unpaid house cleaner horrifies people.

There are more than 4,000 species of cockroaches, however, including native Australian cockroaches marked by iridescent colors and patterns. Elgin said:

Some of the Australian bush cockroaches are really lovely looking insects, which might change people’s perspectives. The Mardis Gras cockroach, for example, has got these lovely yellow patterns on its plates and bright blue legs with little black spots.

The Mardi Gras cockroach, is a species of bush cockroach found in Australia. Image via University of Melbourne/Getty images.

Cockroaches breed quickly, lay large numbers of eggs and are harder to kill with chemicals than other household insects – all traits that could contribute to the popular belief that they could withstand anything, even a nuclear bomb. Elgar said:

They are quite well defended. If you try and squish a cockroach it usually gives off an unpleasant smell that acts as a pretty effective deterrent for anything attempting to capture them. They’re flat, so they can escape into places you can’t easily access.

Cockroaches feed off the detritus of other living organisms, however; so Professor Elgar questions whether they would be able to thrive without humans and other animals.

For a while they’ll be able to eat dead bodies and other decaying material but, if everything else has died, eventually there won’t be any food. And they’re not going to make much of a living.

The reality is that very little, if anything, will survive a major nuclear catastrophe, so in the longer term, it doesn’t matter really whether you’re a cockroach or not.

Nuclear explosions affect living things in a range of ways, from the impact of the initial blast to the ionizing radiation released into the air. All organisms are affected by ionizing radiation because it permanently damages DNA, the complex molecular chains that determine who we are and what we pass on to others. Ruff said:

It knocks the electrons off atoms and changes the chemistry of things.

Low and prolonged doses of ionizing radiation can lead to diseases like cancer and increase the risk of a range of chronic conditions, particularly cardiovascular disease. High doses can kill cells.

Even if an organism is less susceptible to radiation, it’s still part of an ecosystem that’s been damaged. Image via University of Melbourne/Getty Images.

Nuclear explosions are also especially damaging because radioactive substances can accumulate and recycle through the environment – in freshwater systems, the ocean and the earth.

They also concentrate up the food chain, so animals at the top of the food chain may contain levels of radioisotopes thousands of times higher than in their environment. So even if an organism is less susceptible initially, it’s still part of an ecosystem that has been damaged. Ruff said:

The evidence from a disaster like Chernobyl is that every organism, from insects to soil bacteria and fungi to birds to mammals, would experience effects in proportion to the degree of contamination.

There’s less biological abundance, less species diversity, higher rates of genetic mutation, more tumors, more malformations, more cataracts in their eyes, shorter life spans and reduced fertility in every biological system.

In the past, scientists theorized that the more complex an organism, the more likely they were to be affected by nuclear radiation. So humans would fare worse and insects would do better.

But Ruff says that focusing on a single species misses the complexity of the biological environment and how we relate to one another, as well as interactions between multiple stresses at the same time.

There’s all sorts of factors we have to look at. There are environmental factors. There are chronic exposures, effects across generations and food shortages, for example.

The magnitude of effects of a nuclear explosion is far greater than what you might see in carefully controlled experiments and laboratory conditions.

So, everything points to the conclusion that no, cockroaches ultimately wouldn’t survive a nuclear apocalypse.

Bottom line: Would cockroaches survive a nuclear apocalypse better than other animal life and humans? Probably not.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2XjGRMp

Exposed to radiation, cockroaches still fare worse than the humble fruit fly. Image via University of Melbourne/Shutterstock.

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By Kate Stanton, University of Melbourne

The 2008 film Wall-E depicted Earth as a post-apocalyptic wasteland with nothing on it but the abandoned remnants of human society and a forlorn, trash-compacting robot. The titular robot’s only living company is a surprisingly adorable pet cockroach named Hal, Pixar’s nod to the popular myth that cockroaches will outlive us all.

Wall-E has a look at Hal. Watch a scene from the movie. Image via Disney movies and facts.

Despite Hal’s sympathetic portrayal, many people think cockroaches are pretty gross.

But the creepy crawlies do have a reputation for resilience, likely contributing to the belief that they could even survive a nuclear bomb and subsequent radiation exposure.

Media reports have suggested that the cockroach myth stems from rumors that insects thrived in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But University of Melbourne’s Tilman Ruff, a Nobel laureate who studies the health and environmental consequences of nuclear explosions, says he has yet to see any documented evidence that there were cockroaches scuttling through the rubble. Ruff said:

I’ve certainly seen photographs of injured people in Hiroshima that have lots of flies around, and you do imagine some insects would have survived. But they still would have been affected, even if they appear more resistant than humans.

Mutations have been found in animal populations within the original 1,004-square-mile Chernobyl exclusion area. Image via University of Melbourne/Getty Images.

The U.S. TV series Mythbusters tested the cockroach survival theory in 2012 when they exposed cockroaches to radioactive material. The roaches survived longer than humans would have, but they all died at extreme levels of radiation.

University of Melbourne evolutionary biologist Mark Elgar says the results of the Mythbusters test are incomplete because they only looked at how many days the cockroaches lived after exposure. They didn’t look at the cockroaches’ ability to produce viable eggs, thus ensuring the continued survival of the species. Elgar said:

There is some evidence that they seem quite resilient to gamma rays, although they are not necessarily the most resistant across insects.

You could argue that some ants, particularly those that dig nests deep into the ground, would be more likely to survive an apocalypse than cockroaches.

Previous tests of insects subjected to radiation found that cockroaches, though six to 15 times more resistant than humans, would still fare worse than the humble fruit fly.

Elgar says the feral American and German species of cockroach – the ones you might recognize from your kitchen nooks and crannies – have given the rest of the species a bad rap. He said:

Their habit of basically acting as an unpaid house cleaner horrifies people.

There are more than 4,000 species of cockroaches, however, including native Australian cockroaches marked by iridescent colors and patterns. Elgin said:

Some of the Australian bush cockroaches are really lovely looking insects, which might change people’s perspectives. The Mardis Gras cockroach, for example, has got these lovely yellow patterns on its plates and bright blue legs with little black spots.

The Mardi Gras cockroach, is a species of bush cockroach found in Australia. Image via University of Melbourne/Getty images.

Cockroaches breed quickly, lay large numbers of eggs and are harder to kill with chemicals than other household insects – all traits that could contribute to the popular belief that they could withstand anything, even a nuclear bomb. Elgar said:

They are quite well defended. If you try and squish a cockroach it usually gives off an unpleasant smell that acts as a pretty effective deterrent for anything attempting to capture them. They’re flat, so they can escape into places you can’t easily access.

Cockroaches feed off the detritus of other living organisms, however; so Professor Elgar questions whether they would be able to thrive without humans and other animals.

For a while they’ll be able to eat dead bodies and other decaying material but, if everything else has died, eventually there won’t be any food. And they’re not going to make much of a living.

The reality is that very little, if anything, will survive a major nuclear catastrophe, so in the longer term, it doesn’t matter really whether you’re a cockroach or not.

Nuclear explosions affect living things in a range of ways, from the impact of the initial blast to the ionizing radiation released into the air. All organisms are affected by ionizing radiation because it permanently damages DNA, the complex molecular chains that determine who we are and what we pass on to others. Ruff said:

It knocks the electrons off atoms and changes the chemistry of things.

Low and prolonged doses of ionizing radiation can lead to diseases like cancer and increase the risk of a range of chronic conditions, particularly cardiovascular disease. High doses can kill cells.

Even if an organism is less susceptible to radiation, it’s still part of an ecosystem that’s been damaged. Image via University of Melbourne/Getty Images.

Nuclear explosions are also especially damaging because radioactive substances can accumulate and recycle through the environment – in freshwater systems, the ocean and the earth.

They also concentrate up the food chain, so animals at the top of the food chain may contain levels of radioisotopes thousands of times higher than in their environment. So even if an organism is less susceptible initially, it’s still part of an ecosystem that has been damaged. Ruff said:

The evidence from a disaster like Chernobyl is that every organism, from insects to soil bacteria and fungi to birds to mammals, would experience effects in proportion to the degree of contamination.

There’s less biological abundance, less species diversity, higher rates of genetic mutation, more tumors, more malformations, more cataracts in their eyes, shorter life spans and reduced fertility in every biological system.

In the past, scientists theorized that the more complex an organism, the more likely they were to be affected by nuclear radiation. So humans would fare worse and insects would do better.

But Ruff says that focusing on a single species misses the complexity of the biological environment and how we relate to one another, as well as interactions between multiple stresses at the same time.

There’s all sorts of factors we have to look at. There are environmental factors. There are chronic exposures, effects across generations and food shortages, for example.

The magnitude of effects of a nuclear explosion is far greater than what you might see in carefully controlled experiments and laboratory conditions.

So, everything points to the conclusion that no, cockroaches ultimately wouldn’t survive a nuclear apocalypse.

Bottom line: Would cockroaches survive a nuclear apocalypse better than other animal life and humans? Probably not.

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