Go! Go! Greta

 

 

Teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg on Monday opened the United Nations Climate Action Summit with an angry condemnation of world leaders for failing to take strong measures to combat climate change.

Thunberg, visibly emotional, said in shaky but stern remarks at the opening of the summit that the generations that have polluted the most have burdened her and her generation with the extreme impacts of climate change.

"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you," she said.

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," Thunberg said.

Days after millions of young people took to the streets worldwide to demand emergency action on climate change, leaders gathered for the annual United Nations General Assembly were to try to inject fresh momentum into stalling efforts to curb carbon emissions.

 

 Greta Thunberg is a hero. She has taken on the world leaders single-handedly. She has shamed them and made their attitude seem ignorant, crass and downright criminal. She may stir enough passion and conscience to save this planet. Bless her.

Sea Turtles are gravely endangered

 

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The 'Blob' is back

 

A gigantic Heat Anomaly Brewing in The Pacific Threatens a Return of 'The Blob'. The menacing heatwave  in the Pacific Ocean has scientists worrying that the deadly 'Blob' of 2015 is back.

Roughly five years ago, a huge patch of unusually warm ocean water appeared off the coast of North America, stretching from Mexico's Baja California Peninsula all the way up to Alaska. It was nicknamed the Blob, after a horror film monster that consumes everything in sight. The heatwave, which lasted for several years, was an equally indiscriminate killer.
 

According to estimates, during this time the southern coast of Alaska lost more than 100 million Pacific cod. Thousands of seabirds were found washed up on the shore, and about half a million were decimated in total. In one year alone, populations of humpback whales dropped by 30 percent. Salmon, sea lions, krill, and other marine animals also vanished in astonishing numbers, as toxic algae bloomed.
The Blob caused ecosystems and industries alike immense losses - so much so that researchers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are now closely tracking these events.

The current heatwave, they say, has not only popped up in the same area, it's grown in much the same way and is almost the same size. Side by side, a comparison of both their early stages is ominous. Like the blob, the current marine heat wave emerged only a few months ago, as the winds that cool the ocean's surface began to die down.
"Given the magnitude of what we saw last time, we want to know if this evolves on a similar path," says marine ecologist Chris Harvey from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

 

 

Researchers tracking the phenomenon say the patch of ocean water is now roughly five degrees Fahrenheit above normal - just a degree or two less than temperatures during the last Blob.
Deep upwells of cold water have kept the heat wave from reaching the shore, but officials predict the event will likely have an impact on coastal ecosystems sometime this Northern Hemisphere fall.

"It's on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event," says Andrew Leising, who developed a system for tracking and measuring marine heatwaves for NOAA.
"Already, on its own, it is one of the most significant events that we've seen."
In fact, according to records, which go back to 1981, it's the second largest marine heatwave ever recorded. And it comes just years after the last one.
Still, not all heatwaves are the same and these blobs are hard to predict. As quickly as they can emerge, they can also dissipate. Scientists say there's still a chance that weather patterns will change and that the current patch of warm water will cool down, but they're keeping their eye on it.
Research suggests that blobs and similar events are becoming more common worldwide. Earth's oceans are being heated at an unprecedented rate due to climate change.

For now, researchers at NOAA are focused on tracking, predicting and mitigating the effects of marine heatwaves. During the last Blob, for instance, many whales died by getting trapped in fishing nets, as the animals moved closer to shore to avoid the warmer waters.
If fisheries and ecologists can work together, researchers hope we might be able to reduce some of the losses in the future. In the end, though, our control of the situation is pretty limited.
"There are definitely concerning implications for the ecosystem," says NOAA meteorologist Nick Bond, who is credited with naming the Blob.
"It's all a matter of how long it lasts and how deep it goes."

New Species of Tarantula among many discoveries on our evolving planet - By Jake

Sri Lanka is home to a new species of tarantula—and its females are fuzzy, brilliantly  turquoise-tinged, and big enough to comfortably hug a donut.

Scientists found the arachnids within an isolated patch of southwestern rainforest, ringed by tea and rubber plantations. Living in tubular, silk-lined burrows, they are fast and aggressive, seizing unlucky insects that wander too close to their underground lairs. Measuring roughly five inches from tip to tip, these spiders are not exactly small, nor are their brilliant blue patches particularly subtle.
 

In fact, it’s these snazzy blue colors that first caught biologist Ranil Nanayakkara’s attention, and flagged the critters—now named Chilobrachys jonitriantisvansicklei—as potentially new to science.

“When we first spotted them I was in awe, lost for words,” Nanayakkara says of the decked-out females. “The males,” he notes, “are smaller and are mossy brown in color.”
 

The fluorescent blue tarantula is only the second species to be found in Sri Lanka; the first, a drab brown arachnid called C. nitelinus, was identified 126 years ago. Why this brand new genus has evolved no one knows and why so brightly colored, scientists can't explain although, there are other brightly colored species of spider. They are usually the male gender, brightly dressed to attract females. In this case the female is colorful. Perhaps it is a reversal of roles.
 

There has been a rise in the discovery of new species on the planet in the past decade. Perhaps nature has speeded up evolution to adapt to the changing climate.

A new species of venomous swarming spider was discovered in India recently when a swarm of thousands attacked a village leaping on people, biting them and making them seriously ill. They still have not been identified.
 

 Tarantulas can live for thirty years and have been known to grow to a leg span of eleven inches. Some of them make great pets and are harmless. Although they could bite if they felt threatened, they are not venomous. Females are larger than the males and usually eat the male after mating. You would think the males would learn to get away quickly after mating but they are either too slow or not too bright. Not many male tarantulas survive to mate again.

 

Favorite new species discovered in the last ten years

 

Micro Chameleon. Just over half an inch long - discovered in 2012

 

The Stabbing Shark discovered in 2011.  It's small but aggressive

 

Joker Crab discovered in the Philipines in 2012


Pig Nosed Vampire Rat from Indonesia


World's first glow-in-the-dark sea turtle discovered in 2016

By Jake Mahood

Scary loss of Greenland ice sheet

 

Published Aug 2019

Greenland's ice sheet just lost 11 billion tons of ice -- in one day. After months of record temperatures, scientists say Greenland's ice sheet experienced its biggest melt of the summer on Thursday, losing 11 billion tons of surface ice to the ocean -- equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic swimming pools.

Greenland's ice sheet usually melts during the summer, but the melt season typically begins around the end of May; this year it began at the start. It has been melting "persistently" over the past four months, which have recorded all time temperature highs, according to Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with Danish Meteorological Institute.

This July alone, Greenland's ice sheet lost 197 billion tons of ice -- the equivalent of around 80 million Olympic swimming pools -- according to Mottram. She told CNN the expected average would be between 60-70 billion tons at this time of year.

The weather conditions that brought a heat wave to Europe last week have reached the Arctic, where scientists say they could trigger one of Greenland's biggest ice melts.

Scientists recorded unconfirmed temperatures of 2.7C at 3,000 meters above sea level, which would be a new record if confirmed.

It came on the same day as meteorologists reported that globally, this July has been the hottest month in recorded history.

 

 Where sled dogs raced across ice, they now slosh their way through water

 

 

Researchers say they're "astounded" by the acceleration in melting and fear for the future of cities on coasts around the world. The ice sheet stores so much frozen water that if the whole thing melted, it would raise sea levels worldwide by up to 7m.

 

 European weather model showed temperature over parts of Greenland peaked at 40 DEGREES above normal in June. Melting observed on 45% of Greenland ice sheet that day,  a record so early in season.

 

Greenland ice sheet

The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometres, roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet is almost 2,400 kilometres long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is 1,100 kilometres at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. The mean altitude of the ice is 2,135 metres. The thickness is generally more than 2 km and over 3 km at its thickest point. In addition to the large ice sheet, isolated glaciers and small ice caps cover between 76,000 and 100,000 square kilometres around the periphery. If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m. The Greenland Ice Sheet is sometimes referred to under the term inland ice, or its Danish equivalent, indlandsis. It is also sometimes referred to as an ice cap.

 

Area: 1.710 million km²

Length: 2,400 km

Thickness: 3,000 m

Favorite climate change memes